Progressive Living, Wheeler stay focused in face of tragedy

From a day-to-day perspective, business for Wheeler Commercial and Progressive Living Structures has continued more or less normally since late July.
That’s remarkable when one considers the two businesses lost three principals in one tragic moment.
Leo Schuster, Bill Neal and Scott Nelson were killed July 24 when the small plane they were in crashed. Schuster was acting president and founder of Progressive Living Structures. Neal was an owner and Scott Nelson a senior broker at Wheeler Commercial.
Survivors in the two businesses say that while they and co-workers are dealing with the tremendous emotional fallout from the accident, their businesses are strong and moving forward.
“Everyone has stepped up. They’re all doing their job and more,´ said Darlene Schuster of Progressive Living Structures. Darlene helped found the business with her husband in 1977 and had been active in various roles since that time. She has taken her husband’s place as acting president.
“I’m acting in the role of decision maker looking at our long term plan, seeing what we currently have as far as land and lots, etc., and then setting direction for where we go from here,” she said.
At Wheeler Commercial, Fred Croci, partner and managing broker, has stepped in to fill gaps at the commercial real estate brokerage and development firm.
Grant Van Dorn, senior manager for the brokerage operation at Wheeler, said that fundamentally, nothing has changed at the business in the wake of Neal’s and Nelson’s deaths.
“We haven’t really experienced a significant slow down. The business really rests on the shoulders of our brokers with the company and their business has continued to go in spite of the accident.”
In fact, Van Dorn said, business has been strong in the months since the accident.
Leaders in the two businesses acknowledge that much is lost in the passing of the three men.
“I think we all lost a very unique man who offered a lot of insight into what he saw as a direction for the business,” Darlene Schuster said. “He was a very strong leader. So he brought a lot to the table.”
Each of the three is frequently described as visionary. The ideas and unique energy they brought to their work will not soon be replaced, associates said.
At Wheeler, Bill Neal was “the out-front guy who put things together. He was the idea guy and was the contact man with the financial institutions,´ said Bill Wyatt, attorney for Wheeler Commercial.
Scott Nelson had a strong educational background. “He was a very progressive young man,” Wyatt noted. “Obviously, both (Bill Neal and Scott Nelson) are very badly missed and it’s created a vacuum there that other people have had to fill up.”
Filling that vacuum has required internal reorganization and shifting of responsibilities, Wyatt said. But there is little sign of that on the outside. “I don’t think it’s affected their ongoing projects.”x09x09
The impact on a company of losing a principal can range from awkward to very difficult, said Roger Maddocks, Monfort executive professor of management at University of Northern Colorado.
“In a normal situation where you’re going to replace a CEO or any high-level person there’s a pretty standardized process you go through,” Maddocks said. That process includes defining the qualifications required for the person in that position, scanning internally and outside the company for prospective candidates.
“It does take a period of time,” Maddocks said. “That time is usually measured in months.”
Business experts advise having a succession plan of some sort in place. The formality of the plan will vary depending on the size of the company and the complexity of the principals’ roles.
“Generally, the smaller the company, the fewer choices you have in terms of filling in. If someone is designated to work in the role of the person you lost, then their position needs to be dealt with and so on,” Maddocks said.
As Darlene Schuster put it: “When you lose somebody who has had that expertise, you do some juggling.”
Progressive Living Structures was in the process of building an employee-ownership plan, which meant Leo Schuster would one day step back somewhat from full ownership and leadership of the company.
“We had set up a program where the employees were starting to become shareholders in the business,” Schuster explained. “Over the next five to six years they were to become more and more active as owners of the business. That was put in place a year ago.”
Schuster said that plan will likely remain in place, but the time frame for its completion could change. “I don’t know if it will remain on that five-year schedule,” she said. “It’s very early in the process. It hasn’t even been three months. We want to get through our first year and be setting goals along the way.”
At Wheeler, Van Dorn said a carefully crafted strategic plan has helped the business stay on track in the face of losing Neal and Nelson. “You can never foresee this kind of accident, but you can make adjustments to the plan.”
Leaders for both the businesses say it’s unclear how their firms may change into the future without the contributions of Schuster, Neal and Nelson.
“I think the passion for the development business will continue,” Van Dorn said of Wheeler. “If it changes it will be due more to economic conditions, interest rates, needs of the various communities and that sort of thing.”
Changes are inevitable because the person sitting in the leader’s chair is now different, Darlene Schuster said. Some things she intends to continue: the traditions, the quality and the strength of the company.
Going forward is a part of remembering. “In some ways you want to continue to go on because you want to pay tribute to the quality of man that he was.”