A Vibrant Vision: The Entrepreneurship of Multigenerational Family Business

Challenges to the entrepreneurial spirit are complex, particularly in a family business if the entrepreneur wants to have the business survive him/herself and successfully grow into future generations. This vision contrasts sharply with the lifestyle business or "harvest your business" mentality promoted by venture capital or private equity models. To have a vision of growing a small family business into a sustainable multi-million dollar business requires distinctive processes that support innovation, human capital development, strategic planning, and quality assurance in manufacturing and service. Additional distinct processes must be created and implemented that support good governance and effective education and stewardship of future generations of family shareholders. A Vibrant Vision shares the experiences of the author in his growing family business after his father passed away at a young age and building this industrial fabrics business into a multi-million company while at the same time encouraging his children and grandchildren to become stewards of this treasure we call a family business.