Why Capital Partners Matter for Family Businesses

Howard Ice

Founder & CEO, Ice Industries

Howard Ice purchased Acklin Stamping in June 1999, an acquisition considered the culmination of a lifelong dream. Along with a strong desire to own his own company, Howard wanted to build and manage a business and employee team in an entirely new way. He sought employees who wanted to come to work every day, who wanted to work hard and contribute to the success of an organization. 

The successful turnaround of Acklin Stamping earned Howard the Ernst & Young Northwest Ohio Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2001. Building upon that successful base, he has led Ice Industries through a sustained period of growth.

Howard has always lived by two guiding principles: treat others as you would like to be treated and don’t put yourself above any other. His greatest assets are his ability to motivate and inspire his employees to perform above their expectations. He believes you must respect, empower an organization’s greatest resource: its employees. Howard is the driver of Ice Industries’ strategies for its markets, customers and company, and the foundation of Ice’s believe that it will success by focusing on quality, delivery and customer service.

Howard earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from Ohio University, and an MBA from the University of Toledo. He served in the OHARNG with the 324^th Military Police Company for 10 years, is a Veteran of the Operation Desert Storm, and was Honorably Discharged in 1993. Howard is a member of the Young President’s Organization.

Tina Floyd

CEO, Hudsonville Ice Cream

A Seasoned CPG Executive with a Proven Track Record of Transforming Brands & Businesses to Drive Step Change in Growth & Profitability

In her more than 30 years in the CPG industry, Tina Floyd has been driven by her passion for developing and delivering on aspirational brand visions and setting goals to inspire teams to reach new levels of growth. Throughout her career, Tina has maintained a focus on several guiding principles to support growth and sustained success of the business she serves:  people first with a focus on developing creativity, financial acumen and empowerment; identifying meaningful market and consumer insights, while nurturing innovation; optimizing investment to maximize sales and profit performance; and leveraging analytics to inform strategies.

Tina has spent most of her career at The J.M. Smucker Company, serving in several different capacities across many business units. During the last 5 years, she oversaw the $1.7B Consumer Foods business responsible for operations, marketing, finance, innovation, and procurement. Along with a passionate and talented team, Tina built excitement and momentum around the business, making continued progress on the business’ inspiring vision and acting as steward for popular brands including Jif®, Smucker’s® and Smucker’s® Uncrustables®.

Recently, Tina joined a very talented and passionate team at Hudsonville Ice Cream as CEO. She couldn’t be more excited to work in such a joyful category with a group of people that take great pride in their work, are always looking for continuous improvement, support their peers every day and take care of the communities in which they live.

Erik Glover

Partner, Freedom 3 Capital

Erik Glover, a Partner and the head of investments at Freedom 3 Capital, has over 20 years of experience investing in levered buyouts, highly structured preferred equity and debt investments in middle market companies. Prior to co-founding Freedom 3 Capital, Mr. Glover facilitated over $800 million of equity and debt investment in 17 companies. He has been an active member of the board of directors of many companies, where he has worked closely with management teams to drive growth, improve profitability, develop executive leadership and execute long-term strategic initiatives.

Most recently, Mr. Glover was a Vice President based in New York for TPG Growth. He focused on investments in the software, healthcare, consumer and cleantech sectors.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Glover was a Principal at Fox Paine & Co. He focused on investments in the industrials, consumer products, agriculture, and healthcare sectors. Prior to Fox Paine & Co., Mr. Glover was an Analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co. focusing on mergers, leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, and restructurings. Mr. Glover received his BS in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

David Shaw

Publishing Director, Family Business Magazine

David Shaw is the publishing director for MLR Media. He also co-founded and serves as conference director of the Transitions conferences, the Private Company Governance Summit and Family Business Legacy. David writes frequently on governance issues for public and private companies, and develops and maintains close relationships with multi-generational family-owned businesses. He is married, with two grown children.