People first — learned the hard way.

It started with a letter on a kitchen counter.

Jeff Harman was running a financial counseling firm with his dad when he stopped by a friend's house before dinner. A letter from the HOA was sitting on the counter. He asked about it.

His friend explained: neighbors volunteering their evenings and weekends to enforce rules, collect assessments, and keep the community running. For free. Because somebody had to.

Jeff's first thought was that nobody should have to do that work for free. His second thought was that somebody could build a company to take it off their plates. He went home, talked to a few buddies who'd been wanting to build something together, and they set a goal: sixty communities. That was the plan.

Process. Product. Profit. People — in that order. That was the mistake.

The first version of the company was built on systems: tight processes, a solid product, healthy margins. And for five or six years, it worked. But somewhere in that order, the people doing the work came last — and good people started moving on.

The fix wasn't a new process. It was a mirror. Jeff flipped the order: people first — hire great people, give them great tools, pour into them, and they'll make the processes great, which makes the product great. That's still how CMGT runs today.