When working alongside family, emotions can sometimes run high. In those tense moments, it's important to take a step back and regain perspective on what really matters — like fantasy football.
Brothers Andy and Keith Attman, both vice presidents at Acme Paper and Supply Co., have been able to balance business and family, in part by keeping in mind that their relationship doesn't end with the workday.
“Keith and I, for over a decade, shared a fantasy football team together,” says Andy, vice president of sales (Keith is vice president of supply chain). “We could disagree about something [at work] and then that night we'd have to sit there and figure out, ‘Who are we starting tonight in the fantasy game?'”
Andy and Keith, along with their brother Scott and cousin Michael, represent the third generation of the business, which was founded by their grandparents, Edward and Mildred Attman, in a rented garage in Baltimore in 1946. Today, seven Attmans work for the family business and Acme Paper, headquartered in Savage, Md., is one of the nation's largest suppliers of disposable food service packaging, janitorial equipment and supply, restaurant equipment and supply, retail and industrial packaging and custom-designed packaging.
Running a family business for nearly 80 years has required the Attmans to remain tight as a unit, following the example set by the company's founders.
“I think we had a great foundation. Our parents showed us how to build a successful business working together and how to build a family,” says Steven Attman, uncle to Andy, Keith and Scott and co-CEO of Acme with their father, Ron.
Ron and Steven's brother, David, is president of the company.
Ron agrees that the family's ability to work in harmony over so many decades has a lot to do with the values passed down by Edward and Mildred.
“You have to respect the other person, look at their point of view,” Ron says. “You may not agree on everything, but ultimately, you work things out because you’re a family and your family values are strong.”
Edward Attman also had a major influence on the family's approach to growing the business.
“He would come through the office for all the years that I worked with him,” Scott, vice president of business development, recalls, “and his vision was: What's new? What are we doing today that's different? What are we working on today that’s new? It wasn't, ‘Tell me about what happened yesterday.' And you can see that in the way that we describe the multiple divisions of the company and how that's grown over the years.”
Today, the company has six divisions: food service packaging; restaurant equipment; hygiene & facilities solutions; industrial packaging; retail packaging and health care systems.
As one might imagine, the pandemic's impact on the food service and health care industries — not to mention global supply chains — acutely affected Acme, too.
But it also created opportunities to strengthen the business, thanks in large part to the family's commitment to innovation, to each other and to Acme's employees and customers.
“Truthfully, we navigated through that pretty well, and a lot of it is because of Gen 3, who really worked to pivot and to get products in here that people were going to need during the pandemic,” says Ron. “And that sometimes meant being on the phone at 2 in the morning with someone in China, but it also meant seeing what opportunities were out there. And there were some surprising opportunities that came up.”
For example, the boom in carryout business ended up being an unexpected boon for the company — one that the third-generation leadership recognized early and was able to capitalize on.
Of course, there were challenges, too, but Ron again credits the younger leaders with rising to meet them.
“You had all the supply chain issues, but Keith and his team, particularly in our supply chain [department], were able to arrange that we would have something to give our customers that they could use. If it wasn't the exact product that they [typically ordered], we'd have something suitable, and it helped our customers really stay in business.”
As Keith notes, “product's product” — what really matters is people. And just as it worked to find ways to help keep its customers in business, the company also prioritized protecting its extended family: Acme's employees.
The company not only avoided layoffs during the pandemic but also recruited some new talent and new clients, Ron says.
The ability to turn obstacles into opportunities is “in our DNA,” Steven adds.
“Our mindset isn’t to dwell on the problem. The mindset is to say, ‘Let’s get through it and make it better,' because that’s the only answer.”
The company approaches succession planning with a similar attitude of adaptability, according to Ron.
“We don’t have a real formalized structure as to what's going to happen 10 years from now or 15 years from now because there's a lot that can happen that period of time.”
As Ron explains, the third-gen leaders were allowed to gravitate to the areas of the company they felt most comfortable in early on and grow their careers from there.
Now, Keith says, he and his brothers are getting more involved in other aspects of running the business, such as the company's banking relationships, to ensure continuity when the time comes for a generational transition.
Meanwhile, there's also, as Scott puts it, a “theoretical fourth generation, ranging from 16 years old to diapers.”
And although the second-gen leaders have no plans to slow down any time soon, they also have no intention of standing in the way of progress.
“I've got my future in the hands of the next generation and I’m thrilled that they’re taking to the business, that their focus is on the customer experience and on our employee base,” Steve says. “So, I don’t think any of us in the second generation have any issues relinquishing more responsibility. We welcome it.”