Family businesses are successful through succession

It’s quite common for someone to say that they “grew up in the industry” or that a particular industry “is in my blood.” But for Kelly Kirk, who first started working with her parents at Kirk Fish Company when she was just three days old, it’s true in every sense of the word.

“The Kirk Fish Company was founded by my grandparents in the late 1940s. My grandfather was a full-time fisherman and there was no fish house on Goodland for the fishermen,” Kirk says. “My father grew up and became a commercial fisherman… and when my grandfather and grandmother died, he inherited the fishery in Goodland. Shortly thereafter, my parents and I returned to Goodland together to work as a commercial fabricator with a small retail store. Nowadays retail is more important than wholesale, but the processing side is one of the few places in this area that actually processes fresh, local seafood.”

Kirk Fish Company is one of many multi-generational family businesses in Southwest Florida. Some have remained small, although many now have multiple locations and some have even expanded across the state, region and continent. But the common thread that connects them all is that while they have weathered all the changes and growth in the region and beyond, they all simply started with hope and a dream.

Find a niche

Before he went overseas to serve in World War II, Don Wynn didn’t expect to return to Naples and take over the hotel his parents then owned. But everything changed after his return when he met a local girl and subsequently married her. Instead, Wynn used a GI Bill loan to purchase his parents’ hotel, which he later sold to open a grocery store. This ultimately led to what is now known as Sunshine Ace Hardware, according to Michael Wynn, president and grandson of Don Wynn.

“He built a grocery store on Fifth Avenue, and as that store grew and expanded, he needed a larger building. He built the one across the parking lot…and then rented the old building to a Western Auto Parts dealer. This owner fell on hard times (and) my grandfather released him from the lease and took over the business. That eventually became Sunshine Hardware in 1958,” says Wynn. “He had strong customer demand and continued to add more hardware items…the basic needs of this growing community. Everything he did was based on what he believed was right for the community and hopefully made economic sense. These two companies were almost the cornerstones of every city.”

While Wynn found a successful niche to serve a growing area, that wasn’t his only smart business decision. Joining the Ace Hardware cooperative and becoming Sunshine Ace Hardware gave the company a competitive advantage long before big box stores came to town. And that lead has allowed the chain to grow to 14 locations and more than 500 employees in Southwest Florida, with three more stores scheduled to open in 2025. Wynn said his grandfather’s smartest move may have simply been to start a good company and a good job. to strengthen the loyalty of customers and employees.

“My grandfather was always very smart about keeping the family peace and… he was smart about basically dividing the family into their respective areas of passion. As the family dynamic grew, people from my generation and other generations watched how hard the family worked in the business,” he says. “Unlike many other family businesses where many family members are part of the business, they don’t put that kind of pressure on any of us. They have made the expectations very clear that you will start at the bottom and learn all your positions and that they will expect more from you than anyone else. I like to say that we are a “family business” rather than a “family business” because we recognize the importance of putting business interests first and using family values ​​as a foundation.”

Grow the business as a family

Max Lipman was not happy with his fate: he worked as a peddler in Brooklyn in the 1930s with a single tomato cart. Although he couldn’t read or write, Max had a knack for numbers, as did his wife Ella, who looked after the family’s finances. To save extra pennies and nickels, Ella Lipman finally saved $100 and told her husband it was time to do something of her own. That $100 was the seed money for what would soon become Lipman Family Farms.

“I would like to say that Ella was the first investor in the company, but they both had the vision that more was possible. So Max started selling vegetables wholesale at Washington Street Market (in New York City),” says Elyse Lipman, CEO of Lipman Family Farms and great-granddaughter of Max and Ella Lipman. “When he entered the produce section, he saw an opportunity to get to the source. That was the impetus for the whole family to move to Florida and ultimately dedicate themselves to farming. It was a family business from the start and the vision was to build something for generations. In those early years everything was put into teaching the children, building teams and really instilling the value of this idea of ​​building something for the future.”

Today, Lipman Family Farms is a diversified, vertically integrated company employing more than 3,500 people with farms, greenhouses, logistics and packaging facilities in the United States and Mexico.

While the company has grown, the focus on family is still an integral part of the company, Elyse Lipman said.

“The biggest factor that has contributed to the success of this company is actually the people. We have over 300 employees who have been with us for over 20 years, and we even have employees who have been with us for over 40 years. We have farmers who have been with us their whole lives, who grew up on these farms and continue to farm the land and these resources and train the next generation of farmers,” she says. “If you don’t stay true to your values ​​as a company and aren’t consistent in your actions and the way you treat each other, you can’t get people to stay with us. Frankly, the culture of this company is very special and closely linked to the family values ​​of a family business.”

Planning for the future

Although the industry and dynamics of each family business may be different, the common goal of these family businesses and many similar companies is to continue to build on the legacy of their founders. Regardless of how big or small a company is or how many family members are actively involved in the management of the company, what still matters is the family spirit and the further development of the company for the next generation.

“We have a really solid group of people that I can work with for the next 20 or 30 years. I can imagine that we will all work together long-term and that they are an extension of our family. We were born here, raised here and will live it out here,” Kirk says. “I hope we can look forward to a long-term fishery. I hope that there are fishermen who want to continue like this. I hope we’re all able to do that until I’m either ready to pass it on to my son or until I’m ready to step back and get on with it. But I don’t want to do anything else, so they’re stuck with me.”