Familiar names fill Family Business Forum

It isn't easy competing against mammoth corporations, but family-owned businesses, many venerated by loyal customers, diligently do it every day with remarkable success.

In the United States, there are well over 24 million small businesses, according to

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More impressively, smaller firms, those with fewer than 500 employees, represent 99.9 percent of the 24 million plus companies. Recent data notes that there are 17,000 large businesses.

What all this means is that small businesses create two of every three new jobs and are the powerhouse of the U.S. economy.

The figures do not discount the importance of large businesses, but pointedly illuminate the important role that small, family owned business play in fulfilling the strength of the U.S. economy.

In northeast Pennsylvania, much attention has been drawn to the Kings College Family Business Forum in Wilkes-Barre, whose job is to help family businesses meet the challenges of changing regional and global markets.

Among those helped by the forum is Riggs Asset Management Co. Inc., Wilkes Barre. Riggs is a wealth management firm that represents 175 high-net-worth families across the country, and has six employees.

Elizabeth Graham, Riggs chief operating officer said, "The forums have been a real value to us because my father, who founded the firm, was the first generation and, when we joined the forum, we were dealing with the succession of the business from the first generation to the second. We joined the forum to specifically see how other family businesses were dealing with that issue."

As to how helpful the forum has been for Riggs, Graham said, "We joined six years ago and not only figured out who to deal with for a successful succession, which was implemented, but the forum has been an incredible resource for all issues that you encounter when running a family business."

Graham said that small business is the backbone of the U.S. economy and that there's impressive research that family-run businesses are more profitable and enjoy more employee loyalty than a publicly-owned company "Often they're noted to be the best places to work," she said of family businesses."The Family Business Forum is important because it creates a resource for family businesses to survive and thrive."

She listed issues of state and federal taxes and health care as primary growing expenses within a company and said that from a tax perspective, when businesses are family owned, "the more Draconian state laws can make it difficult for a business to survive the death of a major shareholder."

The current state of affairs, Graham said, shows the economy is definitely in a slowdown. "We won't know if we're officially in a recession until we're halfway into it." Government reporting on statistics, she said, is about six months behind.

Publicly-owned companies, she said, are more likely to impose layoffs "but in a family-owned business, you know every-one and will do everything to avoid a layoff. That's where loyalty comes in because the publicly owned chief won't cut his pay to keep on an extra clerk. It's just a number. In a family-owned business every employee is important and you feel a sense of stewardship to employees and their families."

Like many other family owned business, Highlights for Children magazine, in Honesdale, has a faithful nationwide generation-to-generation readership that has survived and prospered, undisturbed by television and the multitude of electronic gadgets that are a sign of the times.

Unlike other publications that have been in and then out of the market, Highlights has been publishing for 61 years. George Brown, a member of the company's product development team, points out that the magazine started in 1946, and also publishes children's books under the imprint of Boyds Mills Press.

Brown said it all started with his great parents, and has been owned by his family all along ,with editorial offices in Honesdale and business offices in Columbus, Ohio.

Brown said the company has been a member of the Family Business Forum for five years, and he's been active in the forum the last four years. He had high praise for Patrice Persico, director of the forum.

"I get to every session and each speaker Patrice brings in is fabulous," Brown said. "She's figured out a variety of topics and I'm able to take away useful information from each speaker."

Brown said he's made important connections with other family businesses from the forum, and these connections run from very small to larger companies, with everyone getting something out of the forum and its workshops.

"My advice to family businesses is that I'd recommend taking it," Brown said of the forum.

Kristin Dempsey, vice president of Dempsey Uniform and Linen Supply, comes from a family that has a heritage in the laundry business, and the present model was started by her father Patrick and uncle Richard Dempsey in 1959. The company is now headquartered in a new plant in Jessup, where there are 150 employees, along with facilities in Harrisburg and Sunbury, for an overall employee count of 200. The Dempseys are dosing in on 75 years as a family business.

"It's an excellent way to network and learn from other family businesses," she said, in describing some of the benefits of the forum.

"Family businesses face unique challenges and it's nice to share ideas and solutions with people facing the same." Persico, she said, brings in nationally known speakers who bring their teachings to the level of a small business.

Dempsey's advice to others who may be interested in joining is to sign on. "I think the earlier on you join, and start planning for succession, the better chance you have for a successful transition to the next generation," Dempsey said.

Regarding challenges in the coming years, Dempsey said that because of consolidation in her company's industry, Dempsey's is the last regional independent supplier in its market.

"Our challenge comes in facing national chains that are publicly financed," she said. "They have easier access to capital, so in order for us to compete, we have to invest wisely for the long term in systems and products that will allow us to provide an advantage to our customers."