The Family Business Experience

Center for Family Business at Penn State Behrend
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The Family Business Experience is a podcast produced by the Center for Family Business at Penn State Behrend, sponsored by Zac Wild of Edward Jones. This insightful series explores the unique challenges and opportunities faced by family-owned businesses in northwestern Pennsylvania. Each episode features: - Interviews with seasoned family business owners - Discussions on navigating family dynamics in a business setting - Strategies for long-term success and sustainability

  1. 4d ago

    Succession Is More Than a Sale: The BOSS Summit Conversation

    What does a successful business transition really require? In this episode of The Family Business Experience, Erin Weber and Jason Petner of the Weber Group of Raymond James join the conversation to explore the questions business owners need to ask long before they are ready to sell, retire, transfer ownership, or step back from day-to-day leadership. Erin and Jason discuss the Business Owner Strategy Summit, BOSS, coming to the Pittsburgh Marriott North in Cranberry Township on November 5. The event brings together specialized professionals across legal, tax, valuation, investment banking, private equity, lending, wealth management, and other areas to help owners better understand the choices in front of them. The conversation moves beyond the mechanics of a transaction to the personal side of transition. What happens when the business is tied to your identity, family, employees, and community? How do owners prepare the company to run without them? Is the next generation ready? What does “fair” look like when family, leadership, ownership, and legacy overlap? Erin and Jason share why the strongest transitions begin early, why communication is often the central challenge, and why owners should think about three things at once: the business, the transaction, and the owner. Whether you are considering a family transition, external sale, management buyout, strategic partner, or simply want to make your business more prepared for the future, this episode offers a practical starting point. This podcast is sponsored by Zac Wild CFP, CEPA financial advisor with Edward Jones. Zac works for business owners who are interested in maximizing their investments in tandem with efficient tax strategies. this includes fully leveraging the benefits of 401k's, SIMPLE IRA, and other more unique tax advantaged accounts.

  2. Jul 22

    You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know: Helping Makers Level Up with Northwest PA Made

    In this episode, we sit down with Chris Lantinen and Brandon Borgia of Borgia Art Studios to talk about Northwest PA Made—a nine‑month accelerator that is reshaping how artists and makers grow their businesses in our region. We explore how the program blends group classes, one‑on‑one coaching, and service stipends to help established makers optimize websites, pricing, bookkeeping, branding, and legal protection, while connecting them to powerful resources like the Beehive Network, Bridgeway Capital, Trellis Legal, and the Idea Lab at Blasco Library. Brandon shares how Northwest PA Made helped him turn his passion for art into a thriving business, from SEO and trademarks to partnerships with other local makers. Chris explains the “made local, buy local” mission behind the program and why building networks among creatives, small businesses, and resource partners is key to long‑term success in northwestern Pennsylvania.

  3. Jul 13

    Coco, Milk, Sugar… and Succession: Inside the Malley’s Chocolates Family Business

    In this episode of the Family Business Experience, we sit down with Mike Malley, third‑generation leader of Malley’s Chocolates, a 90‑plus‑year icon in Northeast Ohio. Mike shares the origin story that began in Meadville, PA during the Great Depression, the high‑stress growth years of expanding factories and ice cream parlors, and his transition into the CEO role. We dive into sibling dynamics, buy‑sell agreements, stock transfers, and the strategic shift from seasonal firefighting to long‑term stewardship of a valuable family asset. Mike also opens up about exploring outside capital and potential exits while protecting legacy, values, and relationships. If you lead or work in a family‑owned company, this conversation offers real‑world insight on governance, succession, and what it truly means to be the generation that grows the business instead of becoming the cocktail‑party punchline.

  4. Jun 12

    Block‑and‑Tackle Innovation for Family Companies

    This episode features Jordan Fuller of the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership in a conversation about where multi‑generation family businesses and early‑stage startups actually overlap. Jordan explains how programs like the FIRE Accelerator bring together capital, mentorship, curriculum, and networks, and how established family firms can use those same tools to spin out new product lines, test succession‑related ventures, and think more entrepreneurially without abandoning their core. The discussion explores practical startup methods such as customer discovery, short time‑boxed experiments, and focused sprints and applies them to legacy companies that want to modernize operations, strengthen customer relationships, and avoid being outpaced by newer competitors. Jordan also describes Erie’s “no wrong door” economic‑development approach, the Diverse Business Scholarship Program, and why partnering with founders, accelerators, and beehive resources is just as relevant to a fourth‑generation manufacturer as to a first‑time entrepreneur. For family business owners and next‑generation leaders, this episode offers a roadmap for combining the stability of legacy with the energy of a startup, and for telling a business story that highlights not just revenue, but identity, continuity, and commitment to place.

  5. May 29

    Supported Employment in Action: Barber National Institute & Port Erie Plastics

    This episode features a conversation with Michelle Izbicki of the Barber National Institute and Heather Evans of Port Erie Plastics about how Supported Employment creates meaningful work for individuals with disabilities while solving real workforce needs for local employers. The discussion unpacks Pennsylvania’s “employment first” commitment and how Barber’s Supported Employment Program turns that vision into day‑to‑day practice, through community‑based assessments, tailored job development, and on‑the‑job coaching. Michelle explains how job coaches walk alongside participants through interviews, the first 40 hours on the job, and any new tasks that arise later, with a goal of fading support as independence grows. Heather shares how Port Erie Plastics was introduced to the program at a hiring event, hosted on‑site “shadow days,” hired two employees through the program, and saw one progress from part‑time to full‑time and into a leadership role, strengthening culture and proving that “everybody belongs here.” For Erie‑area family and closely held businesses, the episode highlights Supported Employment as an untapped talent pipeline, a built‑in training partner, and a practical way to align operations with community values.

  6. May 8

    Filling the Gaps: Family, Manufacturing, and AI with Kevin DiGilio

    This episode features a conversation with Kevin DiGilio, founder of KMD Technology Solutions and spin‑off AIBI, on how a highly technical software company unexpectedly grew into a multigenerational family enterprise. Kevin traces the journey from a single project‑management platform built during an internship at LORD Corporation to a secure system now supporting hundreds of complex engineering and manufacturing projects around the world. The discussion explores how his daughter Courtney became the platform’s lead tester, trainer, and de facto product owner, and how his son Nathan joined during COVID through a programming co‑op, helping prove that powerful AI models can safely run on local hardware inside regulated facilities. Together, they now use structured data systems and air‑gapped AI to clean decades of “messy” manufacturing information, automate documentation, and surface insights engineers never had time to find. For family businesses and manufacturers alike, the episode illustrates what it looks like when next‑generation talent brings AI, automation, and fresh thinking into an existing enterprise while a founder focuses on mentoring, setting guardrails, and making the company flexible enough for them to take it in new directions.

  7. Apr 24

    NAVI-gating A New Era W/ James C. Bly

    In this episode, we sit down with James Bly, Managing Director of Family Enterprise Business Services at EY, to talk about what the next 40–50 years will look like for family business heirs. James explains why the post‑World War II era of globalization and efficiency effectively ended early with COVID‑19 and how we’ve entered a new “S‑curve” defined by de‑globalization, geopolitical fragmentation, rapid digital change, and demographic shifts. We dig into what he calls a NAVI world, nonlinear, accelerated, volatile, and interconnected and why owners can’t simply train the next generation for the business as it exists today. James walks through his “four quadrants” of positioning, 11 core performance factors, and the 10 exponential technologies (from AI and quantum computing to biotech, robotics, and renewables) that will reshape business models in the coming decades. If you’re thinking about long‑term succession, board and owner governance, or how to give heirs the strategic literacy to steward your enterprise into the next S‑curve, this conversation is a roadmap for where to start.

  8. Apr 17

    Growing Deep Roots: Three Generations at Ron Jones Hardwood

    In this episode, we sit down with Steve and Nate Jones of Ron Jones Hardwood, a multi‑generation hardwood lumber company rooted in northwestern Pennsylvania. Steve shares how his father Ron launched the business in 1983, built a reputation strong enough to put his own name on the door, and gradually transitioned ownership to Steve over many years as the industry, product mix, and markets shifted again and again. Nate joins to tell the third‑generation story: from childhood trips to the yard, to a formative journey to China at 18 where a customer pulled him aside and sold him on the future of hardwoods, to graduating into COVID, going through lumber‑grading school in Memphis, and being pulled into sales when demand exploded. Along the way, we talk about what it means to grow up watching your dad sell, work side‑by‑side in the office, and still have a grandfather who calls regularly just to ask, “What’s going on in the industry today?” If you’re in a family business, this conversation is a great window into generational mirroring—how Ron mentored Steve, how Steve now mentors Nate and his brother Isaac, and how each generation is trying to honor the name on the sign without locking the next one into something they don’t love.

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About

The Family Business Experience is a podcast produced by the Center for Family Business at Penn State Behrend, sponsored by Zac Wild of Edward Jones. This insightful series explores the unique challenges and opportunities faced by family-owned businesses in northwestern Pennsylvania. Each episode features: - Interviews with seasoned family business owners - Discussions on navigating family dynamics in a business setting - Strategies for long-term success and sustainability

Information

  • Creator
    Center for Family Business at Penn State Behrend
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Center for Family Business at Penn State Behrend
  • Show Website
    The Family Business Experience