We celebrate our nation’s 240th birthday of freedom and independence this long holiday weekend. And with that in mind, we thought it was a fitting time to reflect back on the foundation of what influenced our company’s name – which starts, after all, with Freedom.

Despite our geographic location, and the flag we’ve adopted as our logo, the “Freedom” in Freedom Consulting Group didn’t initially come from a purely patriotic standpoint. While working for the government, and other various companies before starting FCG, the countless hoops to jump through, unnecessary administrative work, and tons (and tons) of irrelevant emails were all too common to ignore, or accept.

One example that particularly stands out was an email that was sent around our company to inform everyone that there were bagels in the kitchen – but the kitchen with heaps of bagels was in Pennsylvania. And we were in Maryland. It was this kind of instance that made it clear we needed more freedom – from emails, from day-to-day rigmaroles, and from bureaucracy as a whole.

Our initial tagline, “Freedom To Do More,” summed up why we chose the name. We didn’t want to encumber people with things that didn’t matter. We wanted our employees to be free to do their jobs and live their lives, and we wanted to help them focus on that. Whether it involved trainings, certifications, access to all levels of management, a positive and supportive work environment, or anything in between, we felt that freedom was at the heart of doing great work and attracting great people.

From the beginning, we’ve wanted our staff to understand that the real company is much more than what you may see on the outside. It’s all of our employees who are working every day to meet our customers’ needs. It’s our job in the office to make it a priority to help those employees have what they need so they can focus on the big picture: Winning big for our customers and having a great time in the process.

“Freedom” is a word that strikes a lot of different chords in a lot of different ways. This is a time of year when, as a nation, we give extra pause to the idea and what it means for each one of us. Although the “freedom” in our company name is lowercase, in that it represents independence in the workplace, it’s also a part of the uppercase “Freedom” story, something that all of us should give extra thanks for this Independence Day.