For many young people, summertime means a break from school, trips to the beach, amusement park rides, barbecues and ice cream cones. For many high school and college students whose families own a business, summer also means long hours spent toiling at entry-level jobs at the family firm, getting to know the enterprise from the ground up.
Family Business Magazine recently circulated a questionnaire in which we asked family business members to share their summer job memories. Their responses indicate that those long, hot days in the trenches were not spent in vain.
Tim Hussey
CEO, Hussey Seating Company
North Berwick, Maine
What was your summer job in the family business? I had several jobs, over different summers in high school and college. They included working on an ironworker in our metal fab shop; packing up hardware and parts in the shipping department; and installing seats all over New England.
How old were you? My first job was when I was 16, working half the summer in the sales department and the other half in our “data processing” department. After that, I worked in the factory for several summers, and then spent a summer installing bleacher seats around New England.
Did you enjoy it? Yes, most of it was interesting. I did learn that working on one machine for several weeks straight, just putting holes in a piece of steel for eight hours a day, could get pretty boring.
Working “on the road” installing bleachers was a great experience: learning the product, how it went together, and most importantly what the process was for taking product from the factory and working to get a satisfied customer. I also learned how hard many of the employees worked.
What did the experience teach you about the business? I got a great education about what people in the factory go through, what motivates them and what they care about. I got a full appreciation of the quality of the workforce ethic and often their sense of humor.
What did it teach you about your family? I got a full appreciation of the history and legacy of our family, and what my dad, uncle and grandfather went through every day.
How did it affect your career plans? The summer job experiences got me “hooked” on the family business and I learned that I wanted to do more, and to potentially spend my career there. I loved all the various aspects involved in a manufacturing business, the challenges that everyone faced, and the commitment and camaraderie of the workforce. This is when the call of the business first got “in my blood.”
Standout memory: One summer I spent a month installing rental bleacher seats at Harvard Football Stadium. We commuted 1.5 hours each day from Maine, leaving Maine at 5 a.m. and arriving back by 6 or 7 p.m. We were using a number of temporary helpers, and some mornings some of them wouldn't show up—and their friends occasionally said it was because they had spent the night in the local jail! I learned a lot about life!
Building a bond: One other benefit of summer work was developing personal relationships with the factory employees, and a surprising number are still with our company 30 or 35 years later. We still have those summers in common, and it helps me stay better connected.
Brita Lundberg
Marketing/Social Media Intern
Lundberg Family Farms
Richvale, Calif.
A family internship program: My family has produced rice in the Sacramento Valley since Great-grandpa Albert moved from Nebraska to California after the Dust Bowl devastated his farm. He and his four sons started Lundberg Family Farms in 1937. The farm has grown into a company that not only farms, but also markets rice internationally.
When I was 15 years old, the farm opened an internship program for fourth-generation family members. The goal of the program is to give my cousins and me a sense of what goes on from the fields to grocery shelves.
What types of summer work have you done? I first worked on an introductory rotation in reception, rice cake production and finance. Now, five years later, I have found my niche in marketing and social media. As a marketing intern, I am responsible for helping create content to be posted on social media platforms such as the farm's blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.
What do you like best about the job? My favorite task is creating content for the farm's blog. This assignment requires me to spend time in the fields photographing the rice and the variety of animals who call the fields home. It also requires me to document my family's history in order to provide consumers with a glimpse into the story behind their food. As a result, I spend a lot of time interviewing my great-uncles, the founders of the farm. This experience has brought me closer to my family and our story.
What has the experience taught you about the business? In talking with my great-uncles, I have learned so much about our family, our business and the relationship between the two. In my estimation, the relationship is thus: Our business has been founded upon family values. I have been told that my Great-grandpa Albert used to say, “Leave the land better than you found it.” From what I have seen and learned at the farm, he applied this philosophy to all of life and entered every context with the intention to use his life to serve others.
The same can be said about his sons. The founders of our farm seem to have modeled their business practices after Great-grandpa's axiom. In every decision made at Lundberg Family Farms, both the land and the people who live on it are considered. This consideration extends beyond our fields to include all of our neighbors and the environment as a whole. My family's consideration of more than the bottom line has created such a positive environment that Lundberg Family Farms was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top small workplaces of 2008. My family's example has taught me the importance and worth of adhering to one's own values, even in a business setting.
What has the experience taught you about your family? In talking with my great-uncles about the beginnings of our family business, I realize it could not have been easy for my grandpa and his brothers to abide by their father's adage. I remember Uncle Wendell telling me about when Great-grandpa Albert first began buying land. “You're going to go broke on that, Albert,” others told him as he bought “the worst” land. Great-grandpa Albert took his sons out to look at the land and over and over again, he pointed out positive things in the field. “You know what? This is really good ground, but it's never been farmed right,” he told his sons. “It needs a good farmer.”
Uncle Wendell has assured me his dad was a good farmer. And he must have been, because the land he bought years ago is incredibly fruitful today. So it seems Great-grandpa Albert sought to leave the land better than he found it from the very start. Doing so undoubtedly required great conviction and independent thinking. It also required a lot of hard work. After all, a piece of land does not go from being “the worst” land to some of the best land without hard work. And as good farmers, Great-grandpa Albert and his sons were certainly hard workers. Thus, working at the farm and talking with my great-uncles has revealed to me the conviction, independent thinking and hard work my family has valued through the year.
Has your internship had an impact on your career plans? Spending time in the fields and in the office gave me a deep appreciation of my family and our legacy. This is not something I can easily turn away from.
At this time, I am not sure what I would like to do for a living. But whatever I do, I will always be a part of the farm in some capacity.
Paul C. Darley
President & CEO
W.S. Darley & Co.
Itasca, Ill.
What was your summer job in the family business? I held many summer jobs from shop to the office.
How old were you? Beginning at age five or six, I often went into the office on Saturdays with my father. I would have to go through envelopes to see if checks or other correspondence were left in the envelopes. To prove I performed the task, I had to tear off the stamps. Special stamps were given to a stamp collector who worked in the company. On occasion, a letter was “planted” to keep my interest in this rather mundane and “make work” task. I was paid 25 cents per hour.
At age 12, I swept the shop floors and did other tasks.
At age 14, I took on other responsibilities in the office, which included making collection calls. I really enjoyed making collections. Can you imagine getting a collection call from a 14-year-old?
At 16, I drove the company truck on pick-up calls. I also began working a lot of summer trade shows.
I continued to work summers, during breaks and at other times until I graduated from college.
Did you enjoy it? I really enjoyed all the experiences, except when I annually would have to clean out the underground water test tank that we used to test fire trucks. That was a dirty job that no one wanted to do—literally starting at the “bottom.” Believe it or not, I took great pride in it.
What did the experience teach you about the business? I learned that the employees at Darley really liked working there. They all had a sense of higher purpose because we built life-saving equipment. They all really understood and appreciated that we were a family business.
What did it teach you about your family? I learned that there were no special rules for family members. In fact, we were held to a higher standard.
Did it affect your career plans? Absolutely. By the time I began my career, I knew every employee extremely well, I knew every nook and cranny of the building, and most importantly I understood the spoken and unspoken rules, protocol and culture of the business.
Standout memories: I distinctly remember walking into my father's office at age 13 and saying, “Dad, where do you want the files to go?” In an abrupt voice, he said, “You are to address me as Bill.” I was shocked. That night at dinner, I loudly asked him, “Bill, please pass the salt.” I was sent to my room and understood immediately that there was a line between what went on at the office and at home.
Bradley Reininger
Barn Technician
Country View Family Farms
Perry Meadows
Clemens Food Group
McConnellsburg, Pa.
What types of summer work have you done? I have had two jobs within the family business. One was during my college freshman summer working in the main harvest facility counting and moving hogs, taking care of non-ambients, along with cleaning pens and weighing in trucks. Currently I am working at Perry Meadows farm doing various jobs in farrowing and also gestation barns.
Have you enjoyed it? Overall, I have enjoyed both of my experiences in the family business. I love working with animals, and both of these jobs have provided me with the opportunity to do this. Also, I enjoy working within the family business because it gives me a greater sense of appreciation of what my great-great-grandparents set up.
What has the experience taught you about your family and its business? The summer job taught me a lot about my family. It showed me how dedication and persistence can turn into something great. It also showed me how hard-working the previous generations were to make our company what it is today.
Has the experience had an impact on your career plans? My summer jobs are an experience that made me really want to spend my career at the family business. It gave me a sense of appreciation and made me want to work in the business to help further it and also be a part of it.
Connection to the past: While working within the family business, I feel a sort of joy knowing that I am doing some of the things that my grandparents and great-grandparents had to do in order to keep the business going.
Quotable
“I figured if it helps her, it helps the kids.”
— Louis Silberman, who offered a job in his medical aesthetics company to his ex-wife, Shelley Cook. They have co-authored a divorce guide, After the Happily Ever After (Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2012).
“For me, it's a very emotional symbol. It's not just another corporate logo.”
— Ford Motor Co. executive chairman Bill Ford, who reclaimed the company's logo on May 22, 2012, after having used it as collateral for a $23 billion loan in 2006. (Bloomberg Businessweek, May 21-May 27, 2012.)
“A lot of the third and fourth generation have been educated abroad… they have their own dreams. How do you merge this big passion with the family business?”
— Adrian Cheng, third-generation member of the family that controls Hong Kong's New World Development and owns Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (Financial Times, May 29, 2012).
Copyright 2012 by Family Business Magazine. This article may not be posted online or reproduced in any form, including photocopy, without permssion from the publisher. For reprint information, contact bwenger@familybusinessmagazine.com.