The Family Business CEOs to Watch Class of 2023 recognizes 23 exceptional business leaders. The CEOs honored run the gamut of family business leadership, from entrepreneurial founders to fifth-generation stewards of a multifaceted enterprise to non-family executives trusted by the family ownership group to lead and expand their operations.
Mary Lisle Landhuis
President | Fifth generation | Lisle Corporation/EZ Way Inc., Clarinda, Iowa
Mary Lisle Landhuis is the president of Lisle Corporation, manufacturer of a line of over 800 automotive specialty tools with a magnetic plug division and a full line of machining tools made by its Dunham Tool division. She also oversees Lisle’s sister company, EZ Way Inc., a medical device manufacturing company.
Lisle Corporation marked its 120th anniversary this year. EZ Way was acquired in 2003 and moved to the Lisle campus from Minneapolis.
Landhuis was born and raised in Clarinda, Iowa. She received a B.S. degree from Northwestern University in 1995 and began her career in corporate communications with Chicago Title Insurance Company. She then moved on to be an account executive with Business Wire Chicago. In 1999, she and her husband, Brad Landhuis, moved back to Clarinda and her work at Lisle began as a programmer in the IT department.
With the company’s acquisition of EZ Way in 2003, Landhuis became EZ Way’s national sales manager and was tasked with expanding the company from a regional to a national level and growing the product line. Landhuis became EZ Way’s vice president in 2005 and president in 2009. In 2018, she became the president of Lisle Corporation.
She has served on the board of directors for Lisle and EZ Way since 2003. She also currently serves on the Iowa Association of Business and Industry board of directors, the United Equipment Accessories board of directors and the Iowa Workforce Development Board.
“Mary Lisle Landhuis is a role model within her industry and across the state of Iowa,” says Jayne Kielman, business development representative at the University of Northern Iowa Family Business Center. “She is involved in a variety of organizations around the state and shows up in whatever role is needed to help those around her. In the family business space, she is always willing to tell her story and willing to talk with other families so they can learn from the Lisle family.”
“Mary is an outstanding leader who is focused on her staff, the community and the state, which makes everyone a winner,” says Dan Beenken, director of the University of Northern Iowa Family Business Center. “She shares her time and talents, so her impact is multiplied.”
“Having the opportunity to be a part of our family business has been a fulfilling, challenging, and rewarding experience and is something I have never taken for granted,” says Landhuis. “In my 24 years with the companies, I have been able to work with extremely talented colleagues, both family and non-family; have been fortunate to be involved with three acquisitions; and have seen the results of what a focus on innovation, collaboration, creative problem solving and hard work can achieve.
“This formula hasn’t been a recent phenomenon, but started 120 years ago with my great-great-grandfather C.A. Lisle in 1903 and has been a constant throughout the many changes we’ve experienced over the past 12 decades. Family businesses have long been the lifeblood of many rural Iowan communities, and our company has thrived due to the many generations of families that have been a part of what we do every day: providing good opportunities for people to grow their careers in small-town Iowa, producing innovative products and focusing on our customers. As a family-owned and -operated organization, we have a commitment to being a vital contributor to the health and well-being of the local community that has supported our growth for 120 years, and look forward to a bright future together.”