Hitched to Someone Else's Dream

Meg Cadoux Hirshberg

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By 1988, when my eldest child was born, I had already begun distancing myself from the business; I quit the jobs I'd held in sales and as a yogurt maker. By 1990, I had two babies and decided that the best way I could protect my sanity and still contribute to the company was by promoting the culinary use of our product. In 1991, the first Stonyfield Farm Yogurt Cookbook was published. I wrote a second cookbook in 1999.

In 1994, with the company finally profitable, Gary and Samuel were persuaded by a slick dealmaker to set up manufacturing in Russia, with the idea that it would be cheap to backhaul the product to Europe in the trucks that carried goods from Europe into Russia but returned empty. "We had just enough free mental energy to get into trouble," Gary later explained.

Just when I had begun to think that my husband was not so crazy, I found myself begging him not to do something that was patently insane. Gary and Samuel made several trips to St. Petersburg and set up a small facility there. Everything went wrong. Finally, after someone was shot and killed in Gary's hotel while he slept, and an American colleague was briefly held hostage, Gary called it quits. "I lost half a million dollars and my innocence," he says now.

At that point, even Gary started to wonder if it was time to bring in some bigger guns to move the company to the next level. In 1997, he began to hire professional managers in sales and marketing. Corporate people from Kraft (NYSE:KFT) and Harvard M.B.A.s now started to populate the company. By and large, these new hires did not work out, and Gary and I both learned important lessons about the company's culture. I had been vastly relieved to see the infusion of what I termed "grownups" into our company, but now we both came to realize that a mission-driven business requires employees with more than flashy resumés; energy, spirit, and dedication to the work are essential.

The Only Business Riskier Than Yogurt

After the grownups failed to produce, Gary decided to redouble his focus on expanding Stonyfield. But tending to our 297 shareholders -- constantly answering questions by phone and in meetings and providing financial exits for those who needed them -- consumed too much of his time. (My family owned a fair amount of stock; in those years, our Thanksgivings were more like Stonyfield board meetings conducted over turkey. Pass the quarterlies along with the cranberries!) Gary had avoided venture capitalists (whom he likens to Venus flytraps -- attractive flowers luring entrepreneurs to their doom), but he took seriously the personal obligation he felt to his investors. It was an emotional burden for us both.

Gary started looking for a way to get the shareholders an exit, to give them a well-deserved high return on their risky investment and allow him to focus on expanding the company. He often spoke with Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's during this period and eventually soured on the idea of going public after Ben was forced to sell his company. In 2001, when sales were $94 million, Gary sold 40 percent of Stonyfield to Groupe Danone (owners of Dannon yogurt); it bought an additional 40 percent in 2003. The deal, finalized in 2001 after a two-year negotiation, gave our shareholders a highly profitable exit, allowed Gary to retain control of Stonyfield, and provided us with financial security.

But I was mistaken in believing that the deal would bring with it some measure of calm. Gary doesn't reach a plateau and then stop. Financial security was never his ultimate goal. There's always that next venture, that new new thing, that (in Gary's case) will reach more people with important messages about organics or climate change.

After we got some cash, Gary created and invested heavily in what is possibly the only business riskier and more likely to fail than yogurt-making: restaurants. He conceived of and co-created O'Natural's as a healthful, organic, and natural fast-food alternative. The concept is excellent, as is the food, but its fate, like that of all restaurant start-ups, remains uncertain. Gary has poured a lot more money into it than I expected. Once again, I try not to ask. Gary also co-founded the nonprofit Climate Counts, which measures the climate change commitments of major companies. Recently, he has been busy promoting his new book documenting how businesses can make more money by going green. People say they don't know how he does it all, and the truth is, neither do I.

It's all exciting, but I'm a slower, more deliberate, and (as Gary would say) "evidence-based" person. Gary is a consummate multitasker, while if there are more than four things on my plate, the fifth slides off. The person who runs faster sets the pace; usually, I am the one who must adapt.

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