The Transformational Women in Family Business 2024 are 16 accomplished women who are propelling their family enterprises into the future.
LETITIA HUSSEY BEAUREGARD
Board Chair | Hussey Seating Company | North Berwick, Maine
Letitia Hussey Beauregard, sixth-generation board chair of Hussey Seating Company, never aspired to hold that position. “I had no interest in working for the company, and no interest in being on the board.”
Unlike other members of her generation, Beauregard had never even taken a summer job at Hussey Seating, a manufacturer of spectator and audience seating that was founded in 1835 as a maker of plows. Instead, she worked as a waitress, a job that paid more and allowed her to spend her days at the beach.
She originally planned to be a nurse. “That didn't quite work out. So I got into business and started working in Bank of Boston and got in the trust department.” Today, she is a principal and a founding member of Family Capital Trust Company, a New Hampshire-chartered corporate trustee that manages family trusts and multigenerational wealth.
In the 1990s, the Hussey family's fifth generation transferred the company's Class A voting stock to the G6s. Beauregard shared her professional expertise as her generation created their own Class A shareholder agreement and established a family governance structure. “And that's what I thought my role would be,” she says. “I thought, ‘I can add value here.'”
The sixth generation's governance effort was led by Beauregard's cousin Tim Hussey, president/CEO of the company, chairman of the board of directors and leader of the family.
There had been two Class A shareholders — Beauregard's father and uncle — in the fifth generation. Each had four children, which meant G6 governance would be more complicated.
The eight G6 members sat around a table, Beauregard recalls. “We started working away as a group. There were a lot of young little Generation 7 running around.” The shareholders were in alignment, she says: “We had the same goals and intent.”
In 2012, Beauregard's brother Christopher Hussey passed away at age 50, and she was named to fill his seat on the board. Then in 2016, Tim Hussey passed away at age 59.
Even before Tim had taken ill, there had been an expectation that the next CEO would not be a family member, because the seventh generation was still young. The thinking was that the non-family CEO would serve alongside a board chair from the Hussey family. Tim requested that Beauregard be named as the next board chair.
Gary Merrill, Hussey Seating's chief financial officer, was named the company's first non-family CEO upon Tim's passing. “He'd been at the company for a long time,” Beauregard says. “We knew him; he knew us. So, the transition was as smooth as it could be.”
The family philosophy, Beauregard notes, is “Everybody stay in their lane.” The family, board and senior management collaborated to document the division of responsibilities.
Merrill retired as CEO in 2023 and was named to Hussey Seating's board of directors. Another non-family member, Brian Deveaux, succeeded Merrill as CEO.
The first member of G7 has now joined the family business, and the first member of G8 has been born. Some G7s have joined the family council. The Class A shareholder group also includes some G7s, who inherited their shares from their late fathers.
The current shareholder agreement is set to expire, and the shareholders are in the process of creating a new agreement. Rather than simply extending the expiring agreement, the G6 shareholders want to give the G7s a chance to participate in the crafting of a new document.
The family is also thinking about preparing some G7s for board service. Plans are afoot to revive a board observer program that got derailed during the COVID pandemic.
“Even though we feel like we're in good shape, there's always more work to be done,” Beauregard says. “We just keep evolving and taking it to the next level as the family grows and as the company has grown.”