By Eric Woods, Correspondent
It is impossible to be prepared for the sudden passing of a loved one. And when the loved one is also the founder and leader of the family business, an already problematical situation becomes even more difficult.
Todd Eddington, Sarah Delano Pavlik, Tom Marantz and Patrick Anderson have all experienced this with the passing of their fathers.
Tom Eddington, owner and founder of Eddington Plumbing & Trenching, passed away suddenly on July 23, 2009. His family is now dealing not only with his death but also with the challenges of continuing the family business.
A Springfield native, Tom Eddington knew many people in the community, according to his son, Todd Eddington. “He worked as a district manager for the State Journal-Register for several years prior to opening his own business in 1964,” said Todd. “He started building his house while working at the Journal in the early 1960s and was having a very hard time finding a contractor that could install his water line.” This process required having a trench dug from the water main to his house.
Eventually, Tom found a man with a tractor who was willing to do the job the following week. “My dad was thrilled to have found a person able and willing to do the job,” said Todd. “To his dismay, he found out that this gentleman had passed away over the weekend and would obviously not be able to complete the job for my father.”
Tom then spoke with his own father who concluded that the man's widow would have no use for the tractor and encouraged his son to visit her. The widow would soon sell the tractor and all the tools to Tom who took it all to his house to begin learning how to operate it correctly. He soon put the tractor to use and installed the water line for his new house. Soon after, people were looking to him to trench their water lines.
“My dad began doing this for other people in the evenings or on the weekends while he was still at the Journal,” said Todd. “Often, he would trench the water lines for a case of beer, but he soon found that his garage walls were filled with cases of beer.” In 1964, Tom went into business for himself and named his business Tom Eddington Trenching, and years later added the word “Plumbing” to the company name.
“This family-owned business has been around for over 45 years,” said Eddington. “I just don't feel that we see this often enough in our city, state or country. I feel this is what really helped build our country and make it strong.” Todd is honored that his father was a successful entrepreneur who took a chance and made a difference in the community. “He had a great reputation for being fair and honest.”
Charles “Chick” Delano, founder of Delano Law Offices, passed away very unexpectedly in January 2006. His family has been working for the past three years to keep his vision moving forward.
Delano founded Delano Law Offices in 1966. He was admitted to practice in 1964 and began his career working in Chicago where he was employed by Continental of Illinois as well as two separate LaSalle Street litigation firms. When he moved back to Springfield, he worked as an assistant state’s attorney and also as corporation counsel for the City of Springfield, instituting the city’s in-house legal department. In 1992, he purchased a downtown building at the corner of Sixth and Adams streets, formerly housed by a clothing retailer known as Roland’s, and completely renovated the building.
Delano’s passing was very sudden and unexpected. “It is difficult for anyone to go through this,” said Sarah, one of Delano’s daughters, who is a lawyer and estate planner for Delano Law Offices. “He was not ill at all. He had a stroke and was gone in a couple days.”
Sarah remembers how shocking and overwhelming it was to lose both a boss and a father. She shared this pain with her husband Tom and her brother Charles “Chip,” who are also lawyers at the firm. Fortunately, on the business side, Sarah and the rest of the employees were able to regroup and keep the day-to-day operations going the way her father would have done.
“My father was a very strong leader and character,” said Sarah. “He was a take-charge kind of guy, and he led the way.” The business closed for only one day, the day of Delano’s funeral, and his office remained empty for about six months before Sarah eventually moved into it.
Currently, Delano Law Offices has 15 employees, which includes seven lawyers whose areas of expertise include family and criminal law, workers compensation, business litigation, personal injury and medical negligence.
Todd said that while a boss is replaceable, a father can never be replaced. “The pain of losing my father is much greater than I could have ever imagined,” he said. “I don’t think you realize just how fragile life is until someone dear to you passes.”
As an estate planner, Sarah knows the importance of having a good succession plan in place for any business. When an owner passes away, the business could suffer significantly if others are not prepared to take over. “I have seen a lot of people come in and have no plan in place, nor do they have anyone else who is in the know,” she said. “When the person (who passes away) is the focus of the business, you have to keep it going.” Having others who know where the key documents are located and can take over is crucial to keeping a business on track after an owner’s death. Sarah urges everyone to have a succession plan, much like they had at her office.
“We had been working on a plan for a while,” Sarah said. “My father claimed he was going to retire for a couple years.”
Todd admits that they did not have a “set in stone” succession plan in place prior to his father’s death. “Unfortunately, his passing was very unexpected and fast,” he said.
Todd said that with his father’s passing, some of the company’s competitors are implying that the business is closing. “This is not the case at all, and my family is going to keep the business running,” he said. “Quite honestly, we are going to take the business to the next level. We want to make my father proud.” Eddington Plumbing & Trenching was also closed for only one day, that of the funeral.
Todd, his stepmother Jean, and his brothers Tom and Daron will all be involved in some capacity with moving the business forward. They already have some aggressive plans for the future.
“We want to become much more involved in new construction and commercial work,” said Todd. While he is excited about expanding what the business offers, Todd plans not to stray from the company’s commitment to service work. He also wants to continue and grow in the area of kitchen and bathroom remodels while also expanding their operation to include heating and air conditioning service and installation.
According to Todd, the transition has been about as smooth as it could possibly be so far. “My dad will always be the face of the business,” Todd said. “Everything we do will be in his honor and memory, and we want to continue to make him proud.”
Tom Marantz, CEO and chairman of the board of Bank of Springfield, knows all about walking in his father’s footsteps, or “standing on his father’s shoulders,” as he prefers to say it. Tom’s father, Jack Marantz, was founding president of the Bank of Springfield in 1965. After graduating from college, Tom came to work at the bank in 1978.
“We were different in many ways,” Tom said. “My father had a high school diploma, which is why he felt I should go to college. So, he was more street-smart and I was more book-smart. And, we were from different generations. But still, we were the same at the core.”
Tom said he enjoyed working for his father, but every so often they had their “moments.” “When you work with your family, emotions can get in the way. A few times, my dad and I were arguing and then he’d say, ‘Is this really worth arguing over?’ ”
The good times overshadowed any bad, he said, and working for his father was a positive experience. “No matter what he said, I knew it was in my best interest. Fathers do that for their sons,” Tom said.
When Jack passed away, he made his wishes clear as to the “power structure” he thought could carry the bank into the future. “My dad made sure there was a plan in place so that the bank could continue.”
Every day, Tom tries to carry on the traditions that Jack started – supporting the community, especially when it involves encouraging children, and building relationships with the bank’s customers. It remains a family business, with Tom’s son-in-law now working at the bank, as well as the president’s son serving as an investment banker. And the rest of the Bank of Springfield employees, which number 200 today, are like family to him as well.
Tom now sits in his father’s office, and jokes that “lightning will strike” if he makes a decision that his father would not agree with. “My dad’s presence is definitely still here in the office and in the bank,” Tom said. “And the older I get, the more I realize why he made the decisions he did.”
Pat Anderson and his father, Guy, founded GM Anderson, an advertising, marketing and media company, in 1986 after they both worked in the financial industry. “Guy had developed a strong, positive reputation in the Springfield market prior to founding the agency. He was well-respected as a plain-talking, conscientious businessperson, especially among people in the media and in the advertising field. Thus the reason we named the agency after him at the beginning was to leverage his reputation in the market,” Pat said.
Guy’s vision for the business was to create an agency that “could support those family members wishing to work here.” In the beginning, that included Guy, Patrick and Pat’s mother but the staff soon grew to include non-family members. Today, Pat and his sister, Julie, work together to carry on the family business. “I guess you could say in that respect that Guy’s vision was achieved.”
Pat admits that his father left “extremely large shoes” to fill in terms of his business acumen and style. “Even though I took control of the business many years before he died, it has always been known as his company. That is just fine with me. My style has always been a little different; whereas my father had a vision of the company that meant taking care of family, my vision was always one of taking care of non-family employees. In that way we were a good balance. Oh sure, that caused some rifts here and there, but it was a commonsense approach that worked. I won't ever fill those shoes – they're just too large. I work hard to ‘tell it like it is’ to this day, however. That's how I can best embrace the legacy he left behind.”
Pat admits that working in and for a family-owned business is “tougher than just about anything – especially when family members are involved in the day-to-day operations.”
But the rewards, he said, are many. “Guy was much more than just my father. He was my boss, my mentor, my balance, and my friend. When you lose someone like that, you’ve lost a lot more than a parent.”
Eric Woods is a freelance writer from Springfield.
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