In a webinar moderated by BDO’s Brooke Anderson and hosted by Family Business Magazine, leading CEOs discuss their thoughts on “The Successful Family Business CEO”. Watch the recording below.
This transcript was generated using AI and reviewed by an editor. Welcome everyone, and thank you for joining today's webinar. I'm David Shaw, the publishing director for Family Business magazine, and I'm very glad that you could join us. This is one of my favorite webinars to host since it features three of family business magazines twenty twenty three class a family business CEOs to watch. And we'll be discussing a variety of topics, business issues, leadership challenges, succession planning and most importantly lessons learned and what they had wished they had known before they took over their family businesses. Before we get started, we have some of our usual housekeeping details. If you have joined us in the past, you know that you can ask a question or or leave a comment at any mo at any time during the webcast using the ask a question bar down below the video. Screen. We'll go for no more than sixty minutes today and get to as many questions, of yours as possible. So today's webinar is based on our annual twenty twenty three family business CEOs to watch. Which is an annual recognition of CEOs worthy of note. They're nominated by family members, employees, and stakeholders We identify and celebrate great family business CEOs because being a good CEO of a company is hard enough and being a good CEO of a family owned business is just another thing entirely. So we'll explore some of that today. The full list of twenty three CEOs is profiled in our November, December twenty twenty three issue, and it's featured on the Family Business Magazine website as well. So today's feature webinar features three of those family business CEOs who have graced your graciously offered to share insights into the leadership of their family companies. And the research and reporting effort for this project was supported by our colleagues at Bdo, and we thank them for their support. So joining us today are three CEOs. Cali Zamzow holds the title of CEO for two family businesses, Samzow's at a fourth generation long garden and pet supplies retail chain and dynamite specialty products, a second generation business that manufactures and distributes nutritional supplements. Steve Henn spent twenty nine years with Illinois toll tool works before joining ideal industries as its non family CEO in late twenty nineteen. Ideal is a global enterprise with companies serving technicians and workers across a wide range of industries, including electrical construction, aerospace, and automotive. Last but not least is Mary Lyle Landheis, She is the president of Lyle Corporation, it's a manufacturer of a line of over eight hundred automotive specialty products, specialty tools, with a magnetic plug division and a full line of machining tools made by its stunning tool division. She also oversees Lyle's sister come EZ Way Inc, a medical device manufacturing company. These three will be interviewed by Brooke Anderson from BBO. Brooke is National Managing Principal Private Client Services for Bdo. She's advised and provided consulting services to clients for more than fifteen years. Her experience centers on trust administration, fiduciary responsibility, gift taxes, generation skipping, transfer taxes, and estate taxation and planning. So I'm really pleased to be joined by this wonderful group of people Brook. I'm gonna turn this over to you to get started. Thanks so much, David. And I would just like to say, thanks for tuning in everyone, and congratulations to all those who were nominated and selected as CEOs to watch. Most especially thank you and welcome to Steve Mary and Cali. Thanks for your time today. This is always something fun that we do every year. Always look forward to it, and look forward to the interesting dialogue that we'll have. So really appreciate that. As David, was nice enough just to introduce all of us. My name's Brooke Anderson. I lead our private client service practice at Bdo. And, again, we are a proud sponsor of this this, event slash webinar every year and and recognizing all those great individuals out there like yourselves. So with that, I understand, and I'm I'm happy David that you did a brief introduction on behalf of everyone. I think that was really helpful. I think perhaps we can start by digging into the first question as it relates to business issues and certainly upon answering or for you answer. Steve, Mary, and Callie, if you'd like to give any further introduction or tell us anything else about yourself that you think might be helpful. Or interesting. I think everyone is the best candidate. If you're so willing. Alright. So focusing on business issues, You know, I think it's safe to say that every business at some point or perhaps ongoing forever has issues that we face and deal with. I know certainly in the accounting industry, one of those for us, it would just would be the talent shortage. And the lack of individuals or the declining number of individuals who get into this industry each and every year. Certainly something we focus on and address you know, as hard as we can, as well as we can. So maybe each of you could talk a little bit about some of the issues that you face in your business. And how you go about tackling them. And Mary, maybe we can start with you, and then we can circle through everyone. Sure. I'd be happy to. And thanks for the introduction, Brooke. As mentioned previously, again, my name's Mary Land Heis. I have been the CEO of, Lyle Corporation now for right around six years and have been easy way incorporated the medical device out of it since two thousand nine. So I've been with both companies collectively for twenty four years. And, it's really been to be a part of it, in fifth generation. And we're based in, Clorinda Iowa, so it's a very rural part of the world. We have around five thousand people here, and, and it's it's been five thousand people since I grew up here as a kid. So I would say in thinking about some of the challenges, definitely talent in hiring, and honestly just our labor pool itself here. In a very rural part of, the state of Iowa and in a rural part of the country. That's tough. You only have so many people to go around. And it's it's something that we've really, really worked hard with for years. So, some things that we do, to be able to to attract, recruit, and, and train the workforce that we have here. Again, one of the things a partnership that we have is with a local community college that works with us to really teach the core, capabilities for our production staff and what we need to have, with our talent here in house. And so that has really helped us from a training perspective, make sure that, what's going to be needed to grow our own every year because, really, that's that's the reality we face. So that's been an important important relationship that we've had locally. But other things we've really had to be creative in terms of the flexibility that we particularly pre during COVID and post COVID. We, our business grew quite a bit throughout the pandemic. Everyone felt a need to fix their vehicles, which is a great thing, but, some of the things that we had to do was look at different flexibility with ours, and parts of our population that necessarily wouldn't have known much about it. And we were able to successfully do this, and our employment increased by thirteen percent during that time period. And is really it has remained steady. So, those are really some of the biggest challenges, honestly, that we face now and will Thanks for that, Mary. Steve, let's turn to you. Yeah. Thanks, Brooke, and thanks for the introduction. I'm, I'm the one person on this panel that's not a family held. Family member, CEO, I spent most of my career in a large public corporation and made the switch and jump, right before COVID. And I'll echo some of what Mary just said. And that is, you know, we're in somewhat of a rural part of Illinois. Not that far from Chicago, sixty five miles, but sixty five miles from downtown Chicago is a long way away to attract top level talent. And what we've seen over the the course of the pandemic with, you know, economics changing, market changing the need for different skill sets changing. You have to become very creative in how you look for and attract talent. And how you go about making it, making the opportunities available for people that aren't just in the local area. We're in Sikamore, Illinois. We're the largest employer in Sickamore, Illinois, as I'm sure Mary is in Karinda, Iowa. And, you know, your talent pool is is pretty small. So the the partnerships, the relationships with educational institutions to make sure that you can develop, attract, and flexibility, and work for, or flexibility in how we work, where we work, hybrid, work situations becomes very important to be able to get the talent that you need to, to continue to grow. And it's been a shift from local to global. And it's been a challenge and continues to be a challenge as our skill set needs change. So Perfect. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely a theme of being able to attract the right talent and train and develop them and then retain I think it's, you know, for all of us. So callie, how about you? Well, thank you for having me today. So just, refresher, so, two family businesses. One is a ninety year old, retail chain of pet supplies and lawn and garden supplies here in Boise Idaho. So not quite as rural, but probably rural compared to Chicago. So, So, you know, I think our biggest thing that we're working on right now is the fact that, we're not having as much of an issue with recruiting part. We're able to get you know, young people to come and work for us on our retail stores. The the bigger trick for us, I think, is the generational differences. So I am I'm Jennifer Thor, and my father is still somewhat involved with the business. And then I also, my daughter and my brother's son are also involved. So we have three generations in the family. And, I I saw a speaker, Carla Harris this last week who was did this wonderful job of kind of describing the differences. I think the one that I like the best was, you know, for our generation and for my, for my father's generation. If your boss says, jump, we use we would say how high. And, the young people today, you say jump, and they say why. And, it's a very different dynamic. And I think that one of the struggles that we've had is, you know, we're always trying to innovate, and we really need these young people to join us in this innovation process and keeping our company young and and on the cutting edge. But to engage them, we really have to shift how we communicate with them and how we treat them. We have to be inclusive. We it's it's funny the other day there was an email that was sent out to the entire company. It was a required Zoom call because we have something that we wanted to make sure that everyone in the company was aware of. And, and there was a a young woman who, works in one of the retail stores, and she got the email, and she replied to the entire company and said, I'm gonna need more information before I accept this invitation. And we were all like, You never would have dreamed of doing that. But we all had to, like, stop for a second, not not get mad. Like, we kinda wanted to and say, okay, we gotta lean into that. We apparently didn't give enough information and so there are little things like that that we're having to adjust to and make sure that we're bringing in this younger generation so that so that they can help our company become better. It's the infamous reply to all. You know, sometimes you mean to, and I think sometimes people don't. And and don't realize it. So, yeah, we definitely see that see that as well. Maybe we can stick with the topic of communication just for for a question and for around here. Obviously, effective communication is is critically important in all companies and you know, definitely, in a family owned business for sure. So what do you guys do to ensure that you know, that the family is aware of all that they need to understand, and know about why the business is is being run the way it is at any given time. And maybe we'll just circle back through with okay with you guys, and Mary, we can start with you and go to Steve and Cali. Sure. Sure. In terms of our, shareholder base, we have a, oh, probably around eighty shareholders that are all original descendants of the original founder. So, we're now, six generations in in terms of our shareholder base. And were located all across the country, and varied population of our shareholders both in the percentage of shares that they own to how involved and how informed they've been with the company throughout the years as well as, you know, where they're located. And are they able to get back for our shareholders meeting easily, like I say in the middle of rural Iowa once a year? So we really take this communication very seriously because if someone isn't engaged, then it's not going to be good for the company either short term or long term. So we we make a lot of efforts to just keep that engagement level high. Whether it's when I'm out traveling and in any given area, I always make sure to meet as many shareholders as I can in that area. And It can be for a cup of coffee or dinner or whatnot, just to make sure that they understand they know me and they know what going on with the company and really just to put that personal touch on it. And then in terms of, oh, just regular company communications, we send out at a minimum a quarterly letter just updates on, you know, basic things going on with the company and try to really touch on everything from employment to capital improvements to, just product information, things in that nature. So it's easy for people to digest and give me today here. And then we do have an annual meeting here for our shareholders And like he said, we have probably around eighty shareholders, and we usually get about forty of them here, which is really, it's something we're very happy with because it's it's a lot of people taking their time out of their working lives to be able to spend a couple of days here, like, say in Clorinda Iowa. So, we feel it's very important. And particularly in future generations, we're going to have to do more and more at this level. As our shareholder base disperses. So, really something that that we intentionally focus Great every day. Great. Thank you so much, Steve. So I I would say pretty similar We have our share we have about thirty five shareholders. They vary, now from third generation to fifth generation. With the bulk still being third generation kind of passed down through a series of trusts. But we have no family members involved in the and there hasn't been any family members involved in the business for approximately fifteen years. So communication with our shareholders kind of being outside of the the day to day business is is critical to making sure that we're all aligned. So we really you know, from a management side, we we treat our shareholders very similar to our board. And, you know, we have our four board meetings a year in a strategy session. So we have four family shareholder calls a year, couple weeks after each board meeting. And then we have an update on the overall strategy during the family assembly meeting or annual shareholder meeting. So it is constant communication to make sure that what we're doing aligns with what the family sees for the future, Val whether it's value stream investment returns, and being, you know, kind of a professional management team, if we don't have that support, it becomes a little bit of an issue. Around capital and capital decisions and how we allocate capital going forward. So we really wanna bring them along throughout the year every year, to make sure that we get their support or get feedback that says we're maybe heading in a direction that, they're not thrilled with. Right. Right. Yeah. Thanks for that, Steve. Cali. How about you? Alright. So I'm the odd man out. So anybody who's, listening to this, and he's like, wow. I'm saying, wow too. I'm your Huckleberry because what, we're we're, we have four shareholders my mother, my father, my brother, and I. And, so, but believe it or not, with only four people, we struggle with communication. So I think that, one of the things that has been really interesting, and I say interesting because there's other filler words I probably shouldn't use is that my my dad has kind of decided that he, he doesn't really want to communicate all that much. So we we can't call him and leave a message because he doesn't have it. You can't leave a message. So if he doesn't pick up, you can't leave a message. And he loves to text Like, he's a big texter, but text is always misconstrued. So, so my brother and I do a lot of communicating and we try to then keep my mom informed so that she can tell dad over dinner. And then lately, the biggest thing that we've been doing is really, forcing our family to sit down on a regular basis, whether we have something to talk about or not, and by the way, we always do. But but we're we've really forced that issue and said, okay. We're gonna we're gonna meet to to specifically talk about the business. And then sometimes it's specifically to talk about the transition of the company, or family issues and things like that. And so we've we really had to We've really had to do a lot more face to face stuff because that that seems to be the best communication that has worked for us. So Yeah. I mean, I think it's so true. Right? With email and text, sometimes tone can be misconstrued or or, you know, there wasn't an intent there or maybe there was. That wasn't heard. And so, you know, kudos to you both for encouraging your family. I don't wanna say forcing, but encouraging, strongly encouraging your family to sit down and talk. And I, you know, I kinda get a chuckle because I don't have a family business in my family, but it doesn't mean that those communication challenges aren't there because they are. So don't feel you're not a huckleberry. I had a I had a couple of quick questions, that are related. They go back to the talent discussion. So one is does is being a family business, does that give you a competitive advantage? Do you think when you're looking for talent even in smaller areas. Does the is it a advantage or disadvantage? And then the other question is, are any of you using equity participation of some sort, phantom or real, for employees. So I from an outside perspective, I can I can provide some insight there? I think there's a a a tremendous amount of the workforce that may have spent a significant amount of time working at public companies that really relish the opportunity to not live in the quarter to quarter. And so we we spend a fair amount of time a trap or kind of recruiting those types of individuals that say because one of our mantras is we invest in generations, which most family businesses do. And we're not that we will make longer term decisions. They're not quarter by quarter or even year by year. And that's pretty attractive to senior leaders that have spent some time, in the public sector where you could lay out a a beautiful strategy, but when you're not gonna hit your quarterly numbers for Wall Street, It all goes out the window. So I think it's it's it is an opportunity if the message is framed appropriately. And then we do, because we recruit from that area, we do use phantom stock to get the senior leadership team kind of aligned with the family shareholders. It's part of our communication alignment so that everybody's moving in the same direction, and we all agree on that longer term strategy g because it does play out longer term. Yep. So Mhmm. Yeah. I would echo in terms of, echo your thoughts in terms of an advantage as a family owned business. Like I said, we've we've been here for now basically six generations of employees as well. And we have many, employees who are the third or fourth generation, of their own family members working in our business. So we treat our employees as just like family members. We're very family focused and very visible in the community and try to support everything from day care to before and after school programs to to make sure that the families of our community are well taken care of because If they're not well taken care of, then they, they don't have a reason to stay in our community, and they're going to find a place, that will take care of them. So Again, I think it does an advantage, particularly in times where, things are challenging and works being reduced with some of our competing manufacturing organizations, and just how you treat your people. Again, We work in the business and we're owners in the business. So we're walking the wall. As Yeah. And then as far as the Phantom shares, we've done a little bit of that in the past, but I would say that our profit sharing program, which all of our employees are a part of, that's probably, one of the the most valuable tools that we have in terms of added benefits to really give every employee a sense of belonging within the company in that if we don't hit those marks for the profits that we need to have, then those profit bring, percentages, unfortunately, you know, have to be decreased. But it's the oldest program been in place since the early forties and has really served our business throughout the generations. That's great. And I I would echo that as far as, we're concerned. Definitely an advantage in the family business aspect. I think it doesn't hurt that Boisie, has grown tremendously and and started off as a very small town, and that's when our business started. And we have grown with the valley. And it's it is a valley that we're in. So everybody kind of they know who we are. A lot of what we have done, I think, to to to make people lean in is that we have a lot of community involvement with, like, the humane society and and local, charities and that sort of thing. And I think that when a lot of times when people come to to join us in employment, they say, we've always wanted to be a part of this. We've always kinda wanna be part of the family. So, and that, you know, that's as a as the fourth gen, my brother and I are hoping like everything, we don't screw that up. So we wanna just make sure that we continue because the the valley has grown. I don't know if you know very much about Boise, but it has grown leaps and down. I think last year, at one point, we were the quickest growing city in the United States. So huge amounts of people coming in. So in that, we don't wanna lose that, you know, that connectedness with who we are and that we're you know, andextricably linked to the people of this of this valley. So, Kelly, a couple of comments came in just for you. One was Kelly, I work for my mom and my sister and our communications can be bonkers and my mom will withhold information from my sister but give it to me or vice versa She's very whimsical just like you've got. And then the big question is, so how do you end up addressing the employee who ask for those questions. Reply to all employee. Yeah. Company wide zoom. How did that all end up working? You know, that'll walk away for a bit. Yeah. There was, you can imagine that at the home office, there was a lot of shatter about life, you know, can you believe that she did that? Like, what in the world? But, you know, what we ended up doing is, we've had our our sales director is the one who has most contact with the employees, the stores. And and he ended up just going directly to her, and and just and instead of what we all wanted, you know, initially, like you know, put her back in her place. He decided to lean in and and met with her and and said, help me understand how I can better you know, when I send out a Zoom request for everybody, how can I better, you know, communicate what's going on? What part of it were you missing? What part did you misunderstand? And it actually ended up being something we didn't even think was the the issue. So strangely, it actually wasn't at all what we thought it was, but, but it really just it was communication is a face to face communication. I think that was the big thing. Like, get get away from the electronic and have him look and put her in the eyeball and and make sure that we're hearing each other. So Well, that's great. So let's maybe shift and talk now a little bit about leadership. And one thing, Cali, we'll go back to you that was mentioned, in your introduction, was co CEO in that title. So maybe you can tell us all a little bit about how co CEO that role works. Oh, it doesn't. However, we're making it work. I think, what's In in when my brother and I were brought in as Kosi owes, my dad, I think he was trying to keep things equal or fair or whatever he was trying to, you know, come up in his mind. And so he just he said, okay. You guys will both just share that leadership responsibility. And in the beginning, things were not very defined. So it was pretty messy in the beginning. We were constantly stepping against each other's toes, we didn't have clarity of of purpose each, you know, we were both just trying to do the same jobs. And so it was very, very challenging the beginning. And, I'm I'm kind of proud of my brother and I because we have worked together, to be really honest about the fact that we do have separate talents. You know, he's very good at certain things, and I'm very good at certain things. And in some things, we overlap, but a lot of things we don't. And so we're getting better and better. I I won't say that it's perfect. But, we actually, the last conversation that he and I had, we're actually talking about getting, you know, meeting with my father to say, hey, we, we'd like to change your titles out. We we think the co CEO thing needs to change. And, you know, here's where where my brother needs to be and here's where I need to be. And so we're we're working towards that. But it has been tremendously difficult for the two of us. And I think the the worst part was that we began to lose our brother sister relationship, which, you know, as a it's a sad thing. I, so we we got to a point we were, and everything was business. It was a hundred percent business. We just didn't wanna do anything separately. And so we actually came up with these brother sister lunches. This was a year ago, actually. We both said we'd like to to improve our relationship. And so a year ago, we said, well, what if we force ourselves to have lunch every couple of weeks, and we can't talk about business. We just just talk about, you know, what's going on in our personal lives or, you know, a movie we saw or whatever. And so it what happened in the beginning was it was really forced. And then we kind of we kind of got our stride going And it has really helped. Now, sometimes we will we will fade away and maybe a a little bit more time goes in between, but we always seem to come back and say, okay. We haven't had a lunch in a while. It's time we can feel it. We feel the tension. Let's have one of these lunches. So that has helped tremendously. That's great. I mean, it's such an advantage of being a family owned business as you guys mentioned, but at the same time, there are some challenges that would exist for example, in that brother sister relationship or, you know, parent child relationship that don't really exist when it's not. Right? So Right. Yeah. So very interesting. Well, instead of a co CEO, I think Mary Dual's CEO might be something applicable to you. Would you mind sharing a little bit about that and, you know, the planning for the future that you do in terms of leadership? Sure. Sure. Now well, probably my biggest challenge with, with being a was when I first became took on the role as CEO of Lyle. I had been, in the role with the sister company Easy Way, for Oh, I believe nine years at the time, and my predecessor was my cousin, and he was in his mid fifties, and we had exception plan in place. Within probably the next ten years, he was thinking about retiring, and then I would take over, his role at that point. Well, he died very suddenly. And so it was a shock to everyone, to our employees, to our family, of course, and certainly to me. So that succession accelerated by ten years, within, you know, within when we found he was, going to pass. So, so that's been my biggest challenge. It was, like, drinking through a fire hose for about two years. And, certainly, I had been, you know, I knew the company well. I was on the board of Lyle Corporation. But that day to day operational oversight, I hadn't done any of it. And so, really, I I just began by just meeting regularly with each department head, getting to know each department what the challenges were, and then really just deep diving. Into each area, learn it all. And so, that, again, now we fast forward nearly six years from there. And so, you know, my biggest regret there would be not getting involved earlier or more involved at an operational level, but Again, who would have known. Again, it was, it was ten years too early. So, but, I've enjoyed it. I learn a lot every day from both companies and, appreciate all the people I work with. And that's really what makes it happen for me every day. It's really the strength in the management team that I work with. I couldn't lead those companies if I didn't have that. Perfect. Thank you. Steve, let's turn to you and talk a little bit about leadership and the strategic approach that you take. So when when I came into ideal, there was there was ultimately multiple leadership changes taking place. So they had a an outside CEO that was retiring in their twelve years, really the first full time long tenured outside CEO You had the third generation patriarch transitioning out of the chairman role to the fourth generation, his daughter. And we were kind of going through that transition at the same time. So navigating the the CEO transition along with a chairman transition that ultimately then came along with a board transition, required some some pretty careful planning and communication. So as as I came into the business, again, learning the business, learning how to work with a family, understanding a board that wasn't my board, and or Meghan's board, the fourth generation incoming person, was a little bit delicate. So Megan and I really put together a communication plan and schedule that was was pretty intense and remains that way today, which was four and a half years later, and that we We have a call every Friday on the books. Now we don't hit every Friday, similar to your lunches. And this is a call really around you know, what are the issues that she sees from the family perspective, from the board perspective? What do I see from the business perspective? How do they link? Are they different? Are we going in the same direction? But keeping that communication up with one hundred percent transparency has really helped to kinda navigate those transitions. And make I I'm gonna say speed up the transition opportunity. Because, again, both of us being new, that all happened right before COVID. So as with, you know, every business during COVID, it was an initial disaster that had to be communicated, lots of planning, lots of communication around it that ultimately ended up pretty good for many businesses. I know your two businesses did well as did ours throughout COVID. But that's not without a a lot of hard work and a lot of communication and a lot of, of real trusting transparency that we're all in it together. And if we're not together, then let's make sure we do get aligned. To to move it forward. And it's and it's worked out great. Fantastic. Thanks for that. Obviously, communication is, I think, the theme running through every thing here. Right? So another area, that all businesses have to look at is succession planning. And this can have nuances in terms of challenges that don't exist in family owned businesses. For example, in non family owned businesses, there may not be an heir apparent, who was born with the expectation either from the parents or from the child that they would be the next in line. Can each of you talk a little bit about succession planning in your business? And how much of it is a focus for you? What are you doing to address it address it and get out in front of it? And Mary, I think we can start with you. Sure. Sure. It's something. It's honestly it's probably the one thing in the company that I focus on more than anything. And not just for, my role or the family leadership roles, but at every level. I think it's important that we have a lot of cross training, certainly, and a lot of exposure of employees to different parts of the company that helps give everyone really a much better breadth of understanding about what goes on in the various areas because the higher you rise in the ladder, on the ladder, the more you have to understand how everything works together. So, we really try to give employees and family members opportunities to work in various parts of the company and really understand and gain that exposure. And then in terms of family involvement and succession planning, like I say, we have multiple generations throughout the country, really those who typically have worked in the family business are one of our, as we call them, tribes. We have five different tribes that represent the five various, lineages of our original founder. Is is really working with the folks who who wanna be a part of the business who have gone out, who have the working world, and another organization first. And then bring back what they learn to the family business. So, we we certainly would love to have more family members involved, but we're realistic that everyone has their their own lives to lead to. So It's really kind of a balance, for family members to be involved, but they definitely have to earn it. It's not a given. And that outside experience, I'm sure, is invaluable and what they can bring back. Right? Absolutely. It's key. Yeah. Thank you. Kelly, how about you? Oh, Mary, I wanna be when you I wanna be you when I grow up because, I'm I'm just what you're what you're doing doing now is what my vision is for our family. So, to understand a little bit how we got to be fourth gen and to have so few owners. You have to go back to the beginning. So the the company was started by my great grandparents in the Great Depression in nineteen thirty three. So they started it. They got it going, then they sold the business to they had five children, by the way, three. Women and two boys, but it was back in the day. And so the two boys got the business. They they bought it from their dad. And then, and then they owned it together for a while, and then one brother bought out the other brother. And so that was my grandfather. And then he He had three children. One was a girl. Kinda getting to the era where girls were allowed, but still she wasn't allowed in the business. So as the two boys again took over, So as my dad and his brother, and then, probably eight years ago or so, my dad bought his brother out. And so now it's it's my father and my brother and I. So that's how we are where we are now. The problem is, number one, my brother and I don't wanna buy each other out. So we, you know, that's that's first and foremost. But we also, my during my father's ownership, the company has grown tremendously. So the simple buyout is it's not simple anymore for us, and he's also added a bunch of side arms, like I think a lot of family businesses now. We have properties and, you know, all sorts of fun additives that are in there. So, so it's gotten very complicated. And so I think at this point, with my brother and I don't think I know that at this point with with my brother and I had to transition to us, when we get ready to transition to our kids, since neither one of us want to buy each other out, we're going to have to change the shape of our ownership. And from there, obviously, it's gonna be multifamily, and that changes the structure of everything. So there we have a lot on our plate here trying to think that through. The the first thing probably, especially since we're co CEOs at this point, We'd like the idea of an outside board, somebody that would, you know, a group of somebody who could help us. They could advise us. They could, help you tie breakers. And that sort of thing. I think that's really important. I think that's probably the next step of where we're gonna go. But, from there, I think, you know, again, like I said, I look forward to having all the other components that Mary's talking about because, you you've, you're you're a long ways from where we are right now and it's fun. It's fun to hear that that's that's a possibility for us. That's great. And Steve, I think yours is a little bit different of an answer, or would you like to touch upon succession planning? Mine is a bit different, from the perspective that I'm gonna say previous to me coming in, there I don't think they spent a tremendous amount of time on succession planning. Most of it was internal you know, kinda next person up within the organization. But when they went to make the CEO change, knowing that their CEO was gonna tire, they didn't have anybody internally that was available or with the skill set that they were looking for. And that search took almost two years. And and I was actually retired. I have retired from ITW. And I knew the CEO who then called me and said, hey, we cannot find somebody that fits the skill set that we need. You need to come talk to this family. So when when I ultimately came in, especially coming from a large public organization, we really went to work on the whole succession planning for every senior leadership position, and then all the key positions within our divisions. And we have, you know, we have three very large divisions. They all have their own leadership teams. But we we put a program in place started it four years ago to make sure that we are developing people internally that can fill all those seeds, whether we want them to or not, but we we want the the opportunity in case something tragic happens and we need to fill a spot. But we wanna have a a good balance of internal versus external candidates for these positions. We don't believe it can be all internal because you you need some constant refreshing of thinking that comes from the outside. But it really needs to be managed well. And then we ultimately brought it up to the board level to say for, you know, the top ten positions around the around our organization. The board needs to own this. We need to be presenting it, but as a leadership team in the board, we need to own that succession plan and make sure that the the talent is getting the right experiences, and are ready in progressing accordingly. And it's really kinda worked out well as as the last two years have played out. We've had a good mix of internal versus external opportunities and and probably balanced, you know, fifty fifty sixty forty is where those those next generation hires have come from. So That's great. It's, you know, one of the sounds like one of the responsibilities of your role is even coming in is to help put together the succession plan, right, for yourself. That is Yeah. My, you know, with with most CEOs role, I I I spend probably fifty percent of my time on talent. It's all about talent. We can we we can hire capable people to run the business and do what needs to be done. Right. But really looking at the talent where we position how how do we how do we develop it and what we do is is critical to to businesses that wanna be next gen and and continue to be within the family. So Sure. Sure. Well, we're going to move into lessons learned. David, if we're happy to pause, if there are any other questions, from others, we can certainly bring those in now if you'd like or if you're a ton of questions. Alright. Let's talk lessons. Come back with more. Alright. This is honestly my favorite part of of the the question and answer piece. Certainly all of your answers were phenomenal and interesting, but lessons learned I think is one that resonates with a lot of people. And so we can just maybe cycle through again and and just share with the group lessons learned. If there were something that you wish you would have known then that you know now or, you know, a lesson you learned the hard way. If you don't mind, you know, opening up a little bit and sharing that, I think I think the group would be very happy with that. So Mary? Let's start with you. Sure. Sure. And I guess, my lessons learned are something that I I really just learned as I went through my career. And again, the importance of it has has served me well, but it's just honestly we've talked about this quite a bit. It's just the of relationship building, and relationship building with, you know, all parties. So whether it be your customers, your shareholders, your employees, your community, people in associations where you are are just taken. This was something that I was at fault with originally. It was just get away from my to do list of I have ten things to do today. And I need to plow through these, and then I'll take time to go out and have conversations. It's it's the other way around. I need to go out, have the conversations spend time with people much more and build so much more, with whatever audience you're working with by doing that. So Again, that's something that I've had to make myself originally stop and do and make a priority. And now it's it's just something that that's number one for me. So that's the biggest lesson I've learned. Great. Cali, would you like to go next? Yeah. So I think, first of all, lessons learned. I with all of the stuff that we learned, I I'm I'm figuring out now that it's never too late. I I talked to a thirty three year old family business on her the other day. I was like, I'm running out of time. Like, you're thirty three. You know, you're not. And I'm sure that there are people who would say that to me. I'm forty eight. I'm sure they would say, you have plenty of time. So I think we can always, you know, these lessons learned that can be applied at any age, and and we can can get better. So I I think the biggest lesson that I've learned has actually happened in the last year, and that is realizing that there's kind of a It's kind of a dark side to, family business ownership, I think. Because, you know, everybody, I hear people all the time. Oh my gosh. Wonderful you're in a family business. You're so lucky. That's so great. I could never do that with my family. And I smile, and I think I, you know, I can barely do it with my family. So, you know, I think there's nothing different when you're doing it versus staying from the outside looking in. It's hard. It's very hard. And I think that I think sometimes we we don't talk about that very much, that there is this sort of dark side in this. It can be lonely being in a family business. And you can feel very, isolated. And I so about a year ago, I was actually ready to completely leave the family business. I was fed up. And I've I have been in the family business for twenty years. So that would have been a big mic drop had I done that. But and I think I was so upset that I got on my computer and I was googling all kinds of crazy terms associated with family businesses, and I actually came across a book called, if you can believe it, trapped in the family business. It's by doctor Michael Klein, and I came across that, and I I ordered it up, and I devoured it. It was, like, walking through a desert and getting a tall glass of water. It was so eye opening for me, and that opened up, really a lot of of avenues for me. The first thing I did is I I've got a coach. And that has made a world of difference because and this is a dedicated coach. He just works with me. He does not work with the rest of the family, and he helps me to really see, kind of the dynamics and the psychology happens within the family business. And some of the things that, that make it different, that that it's not, you know, when you're going to talk to your boss, that's one thing. You're going to talk to your dad boss, that's totally different. When you're in a a shareholders meeting with your dad and your brother, that's different than going into your shareholders meeting when you're not related. And so there were a lot of things that got sorted out for me and helped me to just kind of find my own voice and settle down a little bit and realize that that it's okay. And and in that process, by the way, have I've been introduced to, you know, those of you on this call. And I went to transitions, and so I met a bunch of families there. And I I realize now that I'm not alone. And so now that's kind of what I've been shouting from a rooftop to any family business owner that I can that I can to help them understand that they're not alone, they're not isolated, that these are normal things, there's a lot of me too stuff going on where we can just say, yeah, I experienced that too. So, I think I think that would be probably the biggest thing. And then going back to what Mary was saying, I think, as far as communicating with people, I I underestimated, working on emotional intelligence And, I think that has been as soon as I started focusing on that and trying to really understand myself and there've been understand the people around me, and focus energy on that so that when I connect with somebody, I actually connect with them, that's been a life changer for me as well. I've just much deeper connections and much better. I think that's true in life. Right? I mean, it's it's so helpful. One thing I know you had mentioned, when we spoke last as well as far as maybe undervaluing the history of what has happened, right, in the past in your industry or in your business and how it was addressed. And maybe want to elaborate a little a little on that? Yeah. You know, I just I think that, to be honest, I was a little bit ashamed that when we would put our heads together about you know, some difficult something or other that my dad would tell a story. And he would say, well, you know, back in the seventies, when, you know, everything was out of control. And, you know, he would and and my brother and I would kinda roll her eyes. And but of course, we'd pick up on the nuances of what he was saying. Okay. How do we apply that to here? And You know, I my husband said to me the other day, you know, history doesn't necessarily repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. And so I I I sort of take that now and realize that those stories that I thought were just, you know, colloquial and sort of weird. And, and I'm, honestly, was a little ashamed of, and I now embrace them because the stories that my dad is telling, he's talking about the same business that I'm trying to run now. There are some changes, obviously, and and economic times, you know, change and all of that. But But when you apply those stories, you can apply them from there to from then to now, and they are still applicable. And and nobody else has those stories. Nobody else has run this type of business before and and have those stories to tell. So I'm I'm not ashamed of them anymore. In fact, I'm now the one of the storytellers. That's great. That's great. Steve, how about you? Lessons learn. So my my lessons learned are are more around, you know, what you don't know stepping into a family business because you're not part of the family. And I'm gonna say that the biggest one, again, coming out of a a large public company where there was a department that did everything for you. So you want shareholder relations. There's a shareholder relations department. If you want capital for something. There's an unlimited bank account that supplies you capital as long as the returns are there. When you step into a family business, dynamic is different, and it takes a little while to learn it. Having a better understanding or picture of that going in and I and I'll tell one little story. In the first, I'm gonna say six months, there was a lot of calls, requests from the shareholders, the family, especially Megan, the chairman, saying, I need I need your thoughts on this. I need your help with this. I need they really didn't have much to do with me. They had a lot to do with the family. And it got for lack of a better word. It got pretty annoying. And and my head of HR, I was sitting down talking to her. And I said, has this always been the case? Because, I mean, this is just nonstop. It's It it it's pretty annoying. And she she made me look at it from a different perspective, and that was How much time? She asked me the question. How much time do you think the CEO of ITW spends with key stakeholders? And I'm saying, I said, I have no idea, to be perfectly honest with you, but I know him well. So I called him and I said, Scott, how much time do you spend with your key core shareholders, mutual funds, whoever they are, and the key stakeholders that are outside of the business? He goes thirty five percent. And I immediately went back into my age or I said, never mind. I need to dedicate as Mary, as you said, I need to dedicate this time to that part of the business because we don't have a department for that. That department is me. And then you have to rebalance your your priority is to make sure that that becomes one of the major priorities. Because along with talent, understanding and and communicating with the rest of the stakeholders is very important. The community, the communities in which you work that we are a big part of, along with the shareholders and and everything else that goes with it. So it was pretty eye opening for me. It's a great story. Good good learning experience. Yeah. That's a great story. Thanks for that. Alright, David. I think we are ready for you if you'd like to Sarah a question from the audience? Sounds good. I think I think all of your lessons were were pretty magnificent. And, as I was listening to the three of you. I was just thinking I love the family business CEOs to watch section because pilights such amazing CEOs. So here's a question that comes in two ways. Which is it's a little bit about coaching which Cali, talked about, but it's also about mentoring. So I'm gonna flip it on its side and ask each of you on this one, did you have a mentor and do you mentor someone else now? So who would like to take a shot at that one? Well, you know my answer. I guess. I I have a coach now, but I as far as in the business itself, my father was probably my biggest mentor and continues probably be my biggest mentor as far as running the business. And, because my brother and I came in about the same time. He's my older brother, but over pretty close in age and became in at the same time. So really it's primarily my father. While my grandfather was alive, my brother and I would go over and have lunches with him, and he did a lot of mentoring as well. That's, I think, how we probably got as far as the business and understanding the values and all that fun stuff, that came through them. And then it's really been this coach. That that I've I've hired recently that's helped me with the rest of it. That's great. And are you mentoring anybody within the company now? Yeah. Yes. I am. I have a crew of five people that, I consider my direct reports and, and we meet weekly. And, some of them are older than me, which is interesting, but they're still mentoring there because they came from couple of them came from Macy's, so much, much bigger company. And and so They've come in and I've been able to help them with some of, you know, kind of getting to the family business end of things. And then there's a few of our, of store employees. If they if I've made a connection with them at, you know, outside events that we do and that sort of thing, and they show an interest in in wanting to understand things. I will schedule time outside of business to to speak with them as well. So there there are a couple of those that that I'm working with That's great. How about you, Mary? Yes. Definitely. My uncle, I I have the opportunity to work with him on a regular basis. He is both my uncle and my father had been my mentors for years and years. Grew up in the family business, both led the family business, and then both retired from the family business. So, again, they're what's nice is that their approach to it has been to be there beside me and not telling me what to do, but working with me and telling those stories, like callie mentioned, and the stories of what happened in a situation thirty years ago or whatnot. Again, it's fascinating. And and it's not the same outcome always as what happens my story, but, but at least you have that background or I've had that background to know, some of the challenges that our company is facing. And as far as mentoring others, definitely, particularly, employees that are getting a little feedback are new to a role. When they one of the biggest challenges I find that some of Our employees have is they just don't believe in themselves enough and I know they can do it and I know they've got the talent. I know they have the skills. They just don't know that yet. And so those are the people that I've really tried to just honestly encourage and show them and help them. But again, be beside them, not telling them what to do, but being there for support when they do have those questions. So very important. Excellent. Steve. You you have a dog back in the background there. Yeah. You know, we had this whole thing scheduled appropriately, and then the housekeeper came. And so the dog went crazy. She's an hour and a half early. Well, it's good it's good that you're well protected. What can you do? I'm gonna say I I really didn't have a mentor in in business because I rotated through a lot of different divisions and and bosses at I t w, but I had I had a coach that ultimately became a mentor. So I I did a eighteen month coaching session with him while I was at ITW. Very, very helpful as I moved up through the ranks there. And has really become kind of an offline mentor for me as I continued to to move on and and finally got to the CEO level. And he's a coach that I use with a lot of my team now, because I really like the way that that he helped me kind of really look at things differently and frame things differently. So that that's been really good. And and because of that, I I probably mentor I'm gonna say six people now, two within my business and four that were part of businesses that I had at ITW that I saw really good potential win with and and have kinda helped them when they needed help navigating their careers or some different type of advice. And it's, you know, at at my stage, you know, I'm I'm at the tail end of my career. That's that's been very rewarding, to really kinda help people navigate, and look at things from different perspectives. And I think we finally, at at ideal, the one of the key mentors is the the person that we have that's the potential replacement for me when I step aside. And it'll be the first time within the organization that they will have somebody that would be a true candidate to fill that position. And that's what it's ultimately all about. So that's terrific. Great. Yeah. It's been nice. Yeah. Can I can I just add one more thing? Mine. I just I I think one of the things that makes a coach a really good coach is that they believe you're coachable. And I think part of that is, you know, of course, they tell you they, you know, cheer on your wins and they help you with that, but they also will put a mirror in front of your face and tell you when you're off base. And that if if you can find somebody that you can trust to reflect back to you and help you grow and really stretch yourself, you've got yourself a winner. That's great. Well, we are at the top of the hour here. I'd just love to thank, Steve Mary Cali. Wonderful comments, Brooke. Great moderation. This was really a pleasure. And I'd like to just note again that if you'd like to read more about these three and the other twenty CEOs to watch from this year. You can find them right on the family business website. And for those family business CEOs in the audience, we do plan, a special CEO roundtable pre conference session at our upcoming transition spring conference in Tampa. This is gonna focus really on a variety of risks and opportunities for family businesses, including AI, cybersecurity, the economic outlook, the coming presidential election. It's for serving family business CEOs and we think you'll all enjoy it. With that, I'd just like to thank all of you who joined us for today's webinar. This is our final family business webinar. For the year, and we'll look forward to seeing you again in twenty twenty four. I wish all of you a great day, great week. Wonderful holiday season. And a very, very happy New Year. See you next year.