Longmont Startup Week: Business leaders reflect on keeping their legacy all in the family

LONGMONT — Building a business legacy can take years — sometimes generations — and when a founder steps aside, it can fall to family members of a younger generation to fulfill the promise of that legacy.  

Taking what a father or aunt or grandmother started and building upon it was the topic of discussion during “Longmont’s Legacy Businesses: Keeping it the Family,” one of the first sessions held Tuesday to kick off the 2022 Longmont Startup Week.

For most people, “business is business, and family is family,”  Ward Electric Co. CEO Mark Ward said. But those relationships become more complicated when family is business.

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Ward’s parents launched Ward Electric in 2005, and less than a decade later, the company was bought by Ward and his siblings. Two of the original three employees at Ward Electric still work for the company, he said. 

All of the members of the Ward family have owned or operated other businesses before launching or taking over Ward Electric, so everyone brings their own experience and expertise, Ward said. 

Generally, that’s a positive thing, but different experiences and strong personalities can lead to disagreements. Working with family members teaches you to leave disagreements from work at the office and arguments from last Thanksgiving at home.

Avocet Communications Co. CEO Lori Jones agreed that spats will inevitably happen, but “mutual respect creates a successful family business.”

It’s critical for those involved in family businesses to learn “how to disagree with one another,” Jones, whose father launched Avocet in the 1980s, said. “You still have to go to family dinner on Sunday evening” even when things are rough at the office.

The legacy of a family business can be jeopardized by new workers who fail to embody the core values established by the founders, even if those workers are family members or close friends, Jones said. 

“It needs to feel like a family to everyone,” she said, “and when it doesn’t, you need to make the hard decision.”

While honoring the legacy of older generations is important, so, too, is fostering the next generation of family business leaders, Ward said. 

“A relationship and longevity” with clients is often more important than offering the lowest price, he said.

Blackfox LLC CEO Brian Hepp briefly participated in the virtualLSW panel before dropping off due to technical difficulties.  

Longmont Startup Week will be held daily both in-person and online through Thursday.