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St. John Fisher College has launched a program focusing on family businesses, kicking it off with a dinner that drew some 200 business people Thursday night.
The program will offer a series of events, from webinars to networking sessions to conferences, aimed at the issues faced by family-run business. A conference in April, for instance, will cover planned and unplanned transitions, with panels on subjects such as selling the family business, introducing a board of directors, and effective family governance. A webinar on Nov. 30 will examine new tax implications for the business structures most common to small family companies.
Rama Yelkur, dean of the School of Business, directed a similar family business program while she was dean of the College of Business & Management at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan from 2013 to 2016.
“Research shows that family-controlled business dominates both global and regional economies, and Rochester’s economic landscape is no different,” she said. “However, we noticed that there are not easily identifiable resources available for family-owned businesses in our region.”
Fisher President Gerard J. Rooney said the college will capitalize on the strengths of its business school to boost the initiative. He said, “St. John Fisher College has a rich history of educating students who go on to successful careers working in and often leading family businesses.”
The program has formed a Family Business Steering Committee that includes a variety of people with experience in family businesses, including several Fisher graduates.
Yelkur said undergraduates may also take up the issues of family businesses in the course Family Business Management.
“Our students will advise family firms or are members of family owned businesses themselves, so we’re working to develop a strong understanding of the unique needs of these economic engines,” Yelkur said.
Fisher began planning for the family business initiative by conducting a survey of local family-owned businesses. The top three findings revolved around a failure to plan.
- “They don’t have plans, whether it’s in good times or bad,” Yelkur said.
- Some are aware that they want to pass the business to another generation but haven’t planned for that.
- “They do not educate their next generation.”
Keynote speaker at the dinner Thursday was Ken Glazer, who became chairman of Buckingham Properties after both of his parents died in a plane crash in September 2014. The late Larry Glazer had planned that Ken Glazer would be the executor of his estate and each of his three children would inherit one-third of the business, but the actual details of how to run the company has existed only in Larry Glazer’s head, he told the dinner guests Thursday.
Besides a series of events and programs, Fisher has offered to organize peer groups so that people in various positions in family businesses can learn from each other. Yelkur said whatever group – first generation, second generation, non-family executive in a family business – expresses the greatest demand for a peer group will be the first to be set up in January.
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