Leaving a Legacy: How Thoughtful Boomer Business Owners Are Retiring Without Burdening Their Employees or Their Communities

Leaving a Legacy: How Thoughtful Boomer Business Owners Are Retiring Without Burdening Their Employees or Their Communities

Source: http://seattlebusinessmag.com/business-operations/leaving-legacy-how-thoughtful-boomer-business-owners-are-retiring-without SEATTLE, WA – At 65, Charlie Lanasa has long grappled with how best to retire from BestWorth Rommel Inc., the Arlington-based sheet metal fabricator he acquired nearly two decades ago. After putting in 70-hour weeks for the company, which makes gas station canopies and custom siding for clients such as Krispy Kreme and Porsche Bellevue, he wasn’t sure he could let go. And, a couple of years back, he began to have another concern: “I started thinking, ‘What happens if I get hit by a truck?’” LaNasa says. “It would violate all my principles.” LaNasa has always taken pride in operating the business by three principles: Act ethically, provide good stewardship of the firm’s assets, and take care of his employees, customers, vendors and subcontractors. How could he find a new owner who shared his values and who would keep the business in Arlington and provide security for his 100 employees in a community of 19,000? LaNasa’s dilemma is one shared by many among the nation’s growing population of aging business owners. Project Equity, a Bay Area nonprofit, estimates baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 own 2.34 million businesses across the country and have nearly 25 million workers on their payrolls. In 2017, owners 65 years or older accounted for 36 percent of all small businesses with annual revenue between $100,000 and $10 million, and 45 percent of midsize businesses with yearly revenue between $10 million and $100 million, according to Minneapolis-based Barlow Research Associates. In a 2015 U.S. Census Bureau survey of Washington state’s 183,000 employers, roughly half of the business owners who responded were 55...
Finding Financial Solutions

Finding Financial Solutions

SOURCE: GO GILBERT! MAGAZINE DATE: 09/21/2011 Businesses in the spotlight Finding Financial Solutions: Jerry Mills uses his expertise to give corporate-level financial support to small and mid-size businesses By: SUSAN LANIER-GRAHAM In the mid-1980s, Jerry Mills was a manager at the accounting giant Arthur Anderson & Company in Phoenix. He examined the market and found a very real gap in support for mid-market companies. Mills realized that businesses often fall into traps in a time of growth because of the inability to manage cash flow effectively. While that management job falls to the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in larger corporations, budgets don’t usually allow small and mid-sized businesses to fill that role. That’s where Mills knew he could help. In 1987, he launched B2B CFO to offer financial and management solutions to small and medium-sized companies. “Every company needs a CFO, but not every company can afford one. Our model makes it possible,” Mills explains. “Just as a company doesn’t need a full-time attorney, it doesn’t need a full-time CFO. We are there when they need us.” He adds that his company strives to provide customers with a sophisticated service at a cost they can afford. What began out of his home two decades ago now has more than 174 partners across the country, servicing more than 550 clients with combined annual sales totaling $5 billion and employing 30,000 people. For the second year in a row, Inc. magazine has named B2B CFO to the Inc. 500/5000 list of fastest-growing companies in America. “To be awarded this, especially during a recession, is quite an accomplishment,” Mills explains. “It’s also...
B2B CFO Ranks in Arizona’s Top 25 Fastest Growing Comapnies

B2B CFO Ranks in Arizona’s Top 25 Fastest Growing Comapnies

B2BCF0 RANK: No. 23 on the fast-growth list FOUNDER AND CEO: Jerry Mills HQ: Phoenix FOUNDED: 1987 EMPLOYEES: 197 partners across 39 states and four full-time employees in Mesa  REVENUE INCREASE, 2009-10: 46.5 percent Q&A with founder Jerry L. Mills How do you maintain fast growth through the years? Maintaining steady, fast growth has been a matter of setting goals and then working diligently to build an infrastructure that supports our team and allows us to achieve our goals. It is also a matter of constant evaluation and making periodic adjustments to the process of the goal achievement. For example, when new technologies become available or when a process can be improved, we need to always adjust our course — first direction, then velocity. How does growth become a part of your business culture? I review my goals weekly. I also leverage the expertise and help from a personal coach who goes over my goals with me and helps me augment and expand them, causing me to stretch and grow at all times. I go over our goal achievements each month with the staff so the team will constantly have our progress in front of them. Making sure everyone knows the direction and the goals is crucial to our success. Looking out 12 months, what is your greatest obstacle to continued growth? I see absolutely no obstacles that will impede our ability to achieve and meet our...