"The sixth generation has yet to reach the age where they would enter the business. Some of them will have an interest in the business, but they will need to convince the more senior generations that they have the ability, energy, and commitment to grow the business. The younger generation's ability to innovate is what will allow Harden to extend the legacy of the brand.
"I honestly feel that our best opportunity is to continue producing domestically. We have to be able to differentiate the brand, and if we abandon our core strengths, then we have nothing left to offer. In addition to being stubborn, I am intensely competitive -- in the business, as a father, as an athlete -- and perhaps my commitment is based more on a determination to win. We are going to survive, and we are going to win. We will never be the biggest, but we will be the best, and we will be one of the few domestic producers who survive."
A.E. Schmidt Company
POOL TABLE MANUFACTURER
Founded: 1850
St. Louis
Kurt Schmidt, 49, president, fifth generation
"My great-great-great-grandfather Ernst Schmidt emigrated from Germany and set up shop with just one lathe. Today, we sell virtually everything you could want for a game room, and we make just about any kind of pool table. I have never had another job. This is all I ever wanted to do. You better love the business that you are in if you want to stick around, because like that ill-tempered dog up the street, sometimes it's not so lovable. We have stuck around because no matter how bad things get -- and they have been rotten from time to time -- the passion is still there.
"We've had several brushes with oblivion over the years, but good relationships with vendors, a strong customer base, good employees, hard work, and some help from above have pulled us through.
"I remember one family board meeting in the late '70s. We had just lost a ton of money for the year. One of the other family members said that maybe the company had run its course and we should consider closing it. Hearing that was such a shock to everyone that the following year, we had record profits -- fear is a great motivator sometimes.
"Our sales typically run from $3.5 million to $5 million per year. Last year was a down year for the company and the industry -- you can pretty well tell how pool tables are doing by checking new-home sales. My accountant says it's the craziest business ever. It has more mood swings than a teenager.
"I get asked a lot what our secret is, and the truth is, there really isn't one. I can only tell you what has worked for us and why we have survived. It starts with instilling a work ethic and pride as to what your family is about. As kids, most of us have had some resentment about the amount of time dedicated to business. That disappears when someone says, 'I have a Schmidt pool table, and we love it.'
"In an old family business, it is almost impossible to have a normal family life. Feelings get hurt, and they turn into deep wounds, some of which never heal. The rewards are different for each person. I will never be confused with Bill Gates or even his chauffeur. I don't take a day off to go golfing or have martini lunches. But I get a real kick out of building something, in this country, with my people, that I know is going to long outlast the original owner. I just watched the movie Top Hat with my daughter. She was amazed at how great Fred Astaire was as a dancer. That movie came out some 70 years ago, and people are still enjoying it. Designing it, building it, watching it come to life, and knowing it will be around entertaining people long after I am gone -- that's the good stuff."
NP Dodge
REAL ESTATE
Founded: 1855
Omaha
Nate Dodge, 44, executive vice president, fifth generation
"The company was founded by the first N.P. Dodge and his older brother, Grenville. The brothers had been working as surveyors for the railroads and ended up representing Eastern investors who wanted to buy land out West.
"Grenville, later a Union general in the Civil War, came out first, and when he saw the Missouri River Valley, he thought it was the prettiest land he ever saw. He wrote his little brother, N.P., who was in high school at the time in Danvers, Massachusetts, and said, 'forget high school, come on out here.' N.P. worked his way across on a surveying crew to get here, in 1854, and the two of them put together a land company and later a bank, in 1856.
"The company has taken on the personality of each N.P. The first N.P. was a land seller and a banker. The second, his son, graduated from Harvard Law School in 1898 and came back to manage some of the real estate assets that the general and his dad had put together. The second N.P. saw that people were defaulting on bank loans for land and that he could take the land and break it into pieces and sell it for more than you could as a whole parcel. He became one of the most prolific land developers at the time. From my perspective, he was probably the hardest-working N.P. The third N.P., Dad's father, started our insurance company, the mortgage banking company, and the residential real estate firm. But I think the best businessperson has been my dad. He has really focused our operation and grown it to the diverse business it is today. And now it's coming up to me, and I'm going to screw it all up!
"In our residential sales division, we have 15 offices throughout the metro area and something over 520 sales associates. We do slightly less than a billion dollars in this area. Along with that, we have an insurance company that does both health and property casualty; we have four title insurance companies that serve 17 counties in this area; we have a commercial real estate company; we have a land company; and we also have an apartment management company that has 4,500 units in this area. My mother runs NEI Global Relocation, a corporate relocation management company, which is our largest operating company, revenue-wise.
"I think the three of us running the business are the beneficiaries of getting along both in our personal and our business lives. We definitely do argue; we definitely do disagree with each other. But we do it respectfully. And I think Dad sets the tone for the rest of us -- that what's best for business and for the family comes first. One thing my dad drilled into me: Whenever people would talk about the company or him or the whole Dodge lineage and all that kind of baloney, Dad would say, 'Let other people worry about who your great-grandfather was; you worry about how his great-grandson is going to turn out."
