Chuck Reimel started his career as an Electronics Technician in the United States Navy, serving six years aboard the USS Puget Sound. He left the service in 1991 and went into fire & safety — not at the top, but at branch level, managing service crews and learning the business the way the owners he now represents did.
In 2004 he did what a lot of good operators eventually do: he went out on his own. For five years he owned and ran his own fire protection company in Wilmington, North Carolina — meeting payroll, keeping trucks on the road, and carrying the weight that every owner of a service business carries.
He then spent more than a decade at Pye-Barker Fire & Safety, ultimately as Executive Vice President of Business Development for M&A, followed by a year as Chief Business Development Officer at LawnPRO Partners. In those roles he sat on the buying side of countless conversations with owners just like the ones he works with today — which is precisely why he knows where sellers leave money and leverage behind.
The Hartwell Group was founded in 2026 as a sell-side advisory firm focused entirely on blue-collar, service-based businesses. Veteran owned and operated, the firm exists on the principle that the person who spent thirty years in this industry should be working for the owner — not the acquirer.