Family ties

When relatives run the business, a few adjustments have to be made

Family firms account for nearly 90 percent of all U.S. businesses.

But the continuing success of the family enterprise may be one of the least understood and most underrated phenomena in the American economy. To the outsider looking in, the day-to-day dynamics can be mind-boggling.

"All the how-to books you read insist that business is business and family is family and the two should never meet," said Bob Helder, vice president of Robert W. Ross Building Contractor Inc., a residential and commercial construction and development company.

"But it really isn't that simple."

Helder is one of three owners of Ross Construction. The other two are his sister-in-law Susan Dykhuizen and his brother-in-law Don Ross - the children of deceased founder Robert W. Ross. Dykhuizen is chief executive officer/president and Ross is secretary of the corporation. Of the six Ross children, only two are involved with the business today.

"When things get too hot, we have a cooling-off period," said Dykhuizen, who handles administration and finance. "Then we all go out and drive around alone in our vehicles for a while. But mostly we have fun. Even on the weekends, we play together."

"We are a close family," said Helder, the company's customer service and marketing specialist. "So when one of us makes a mistake, we all learn from it."

All three owners arrived at the business by a different route.

"In my family you started out with a shovel and you pulled nails and stacked lumber," said Don Ross, who heads the construction side of the business.

"My dad began the company when I was two years old and there was a time when I used to think that going into the family business would be the worst punishment in the world. But then I graduated from college, got married and needed a job. I've been here 29 years."

Dykhuizen and Helder joined Ross Construction in 2001, the year Robert W. Ross died. Dykhuizen had previously been a controller for several Minnesota companies and Helder had been in church ministry.

"I got a call in April that year asking if I wanted to help out in the business because the skills I had learned in other people's companies were needed at home," Dykhuizen said. "In my heart of hearts, I always knew it would happen someday - that I'd go back."

According to Helder, "With my father-in-law being terminal, it was time to come home. I was in the ministry for years, so I certainly knew what it meant to play politics, to market, to strategize and to give good customer service.

"Everything that I did there, I do here."

Gordon Pirrie is another businessman who made an unlikely career change. In 1970, the Montana man who had spent his entire working life in pipeline management and had lived in six towns in three years came to Kalispell and, along with two partners, bought into the clothing business.

Western Outdoor is the sole surviving store of that purchase.

"I didn't know anything about the business then," Pirrie said. "I just came in and went to work."

Thirty-five years later, Pirrie and his children, Susan Munsinger and Mark Pirrie, own three adjacent buildings on Main Street. Munsinger and Mark Pirrie own Western Outdoor and Gordon Pirrie owns Norm's News.

Like the Ross siblings, the Pirries grew up working around the store.

"We washed sidewalks and ran errands," said Munsinger, who officially entered the family business in the early 1990s, following a year with an Oklahoma company. "When I got home, I started working in the store part time - waiting for my dad to give me some responsibility, I guess."

Today Munsinger does the buying and bookkeeping.

"It was always in the back of my mind somewhere that I would go into the business," said Mark Pirrie, a psychology major in college and now store manager and buyer.

None of this surprised their father, who these days leaves Western Outdoor to his children and spends his own time running Norm's News. "I guess I expected my kids to end up here someday because everyone who leaves Montana wants to come back," he said.

Salary decisions are often a challenge for family-owned companies.

"In our case, it's simple," Munsinger said. "Mark's and my salaries depend on how much the business can afford to pay."

At Ross Construction, "the three of us make the same amount, so if the company's successful, we all get a bonus," Dykhuizen said.

"We work from our individual strengths, not our individual goals," Ross said. "And we share the same values, like integrity, honesty and excellence."

And what about control?

"In a family business, you have more control over what happens," Munsinger said. "For example, I do the books, so I stay on top of what's really happening in the store."

"We don't have to work with committees and investors," Helder said. "I think the only reason we're able to go so fast and furious is we're family."

Helder worries about letting go. As the company grows, he knows the firm will have to hire employees from the outside.

"We will have to give some control over to them," he said. "It's one thing to trust family and another to trust the people you hire."

Both families said they would like it if their children were interested in taking over the business, but that it wouldn't devastate them if it didn't happen.

In the end, though, it's all about, well, family.

"If I get financially able, I don't want to work anymore," Munsinger said. "Mark, on the other hand, will be here forever."

"There would have to be a major reason for me to leave," Mark Pirrie said. "But I really can't imagine being here by myself.

"You know, I can't imagine my working here without Mark, either," Munsinger said.

Reporter George Kingson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at gkingson@dailyinterlake.com