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You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!
 By
Henry D. Landes
November 2003
Near the conference table in my office is a colorful wall hanging
hand-stitched by my grandmother, Susan Alderfer Landes.
The wall hanging is special because “Grammy Landes”
made it in her late 80s. She was always working!
In 1929 Susan Landes was a co-entrepreneur with her husband, Isaiah,
in founding the plumbing and heating company that was to become
I.T. Landes & Son Inc., now a thriving fourth-generation family
business. My dad recalls, “She was pretty nearly the boss.”
Today we might call her the shop and office manager, while Grandpop
was more in charge of field operations.
My grandmother was an early riser, usually around 5 a.m., taking
care of household duties before starting her office work around
7 a.m. Hers was a long day, often commingling household and business
responsibilities. She even had a large truck mirror mounted outside
her kitchen window so, while preparing meals or washing dishes,
she could be watching the comings and goings of employees and customers
around the shop behind her house!
How she did it – and still have the time and energy to take
the domestic lead in raising five children, including my father,
Henry – is one of life’s amazing mysteries. But Susan
Landes was a full partner with I.T. Landes in every sense of the
word.
Most businesses get started on family capital – both money
and labor. Women often play key roles in succeeding generations.
My mother, Anna, for example, did what many women do: serve as the
CEO (Chief Emotional Officer) of the family and the family
business – nurturing, mediating and managing the relational
aspects of a business family.
The title of this President’s Corner is borrowed from the
Virginia Slims cigarette ad campaign of a few decades ago when women
were being “liberated” – in all too many cases
– to take on the same unhealthy habits of their male counterparts.
My point is that women, have always played a key role in family
businesses (usually as the “invisible partner”), increasingly
are stepping up to the plate and being recognized for their
talents and contributions.
Nowadays, women are engaged in family businesses in a number of
ways: working with their father or husband, leading a business started
by a man in their family, or establishing their own enterprise.
Examples include:
- Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, started by Anne Beiler in 1988
with over 750 locations around the world.
- Julia Klein, third-generation CEO of C.H. Briggs Hardware,
Reading.
- Jo Anne Forman, president of Sealstrip Corporation, Boyertown,
which she co-owns with her husband, Harold, who heads research
and development. Daughter Heather Hartman is being groomed for
leadership.
- Sherry Russell, recently appointed third-generation president
of Alderfer Inc., Harleysville.
- Rose Schoch, founder/CEO of the Harley-Davidson dealership
in Stroudsburg.
Such anecdotal evidence from this area is backed up by hard data
on the national scene. MassMutual Financial Group and the Raymond
Institute did a survey on family-owned businesses in the United
States. The respondents report that …
- 10% are led by a female CEO.
- 34% may next be led by a woman.
- Nearly half of the companies expecting their firm to be led
by two or more CEOs think one of them may be a woman.
- 52% employ at least one female family member full time.
- Women-owned firms tend to have better gender balance on their
boards.
A growing number of women in our quarterly Forums are in leadership
in their family business – or are preparing for it. As a way
of building on that new reality, a special luncheon for women is
being planned to follow immediately on the heels of the next Forum
on Thursday, November 20 at Indian Valley Country Club.
The luncheon, which will get under way about 11:30 a.m., is open
to all women interested in learning from one another and nurturing
each other in their respective roles in family business. For more
information, contact Sally Derstine.
Hope to see you November 20 at the Forum – and
the luncheon!
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