Transcription

Katie: You're listening to Never Go Against The Family, a podcast by the University of Northern Iowa Family Business Center. In this episode, you'll hear Dan chat with Iowa State Senator Adrian Dickey, who is also president and a third generation leader of Dickey Transport out of Packwood Iowa. Adrian shares his advice for Iowa families, touching on his experience, inheriting leadership and surviving the transition between generations. Keep listening to hear that conversation.

Dan: Hey, everybody. Welcome to this edition of Never Go Against the Family, our Iowa Family Business Center podcast series, featuring family owned companies across the state. Today, I have the pleasure of being with Adrian Dickey. who is I think third generation with his family owned company and I'm gonna let Adrian kind of talk a little bit more about his involvement and Adrian maybe first if you could kind of just introduce yourself and your generation and, and, and how you came to be, become involved in the company.

Adrian: Sure, thank you, Dan. Yeah, my name is Adrian Dickey, with Dickie Transport. I'm a third generation family business owner. I currently have five others from the third generation that work at the business with me: my father, one aunt and uncle still are involved on a daily basis. My grandfather started back in the late 19 fifties, basically with the gas stations and then, bought trucks to haul fuel to the gas stations and, and the trucking side grew where the gas side, this convenience store side of the business grew. We've sold most of those assets off over the last several years.

Dan: You were actually in the convenience store business initially?

Adrian: Yep. That's kind of how we started convenience stores, truck stops, restaurants, grocery store and grandpa was quite an entrepreneur actually, he started, he really started in a farm implement dealership, business and then went off to the war, hired somebody to run that when he was at the war, when he came back it was basically going so well. He's like, well, no reason to mess with it. So he started to build gas stations and, you know, and just many businesses like that over the years have evolved through his niche, I guess to see a need and try to jump into that space. But, probably in the last 10 years we have sold off most all the other businesses and, and just try to focus on what we do well, and that's trucking as opposed to trying to do a lot of things.

Dan: Yeah, so did you get your start, Adrian in a convenience store setting or driving a truck or where did you start?

Adrian: Well, yeah, I started in the trucking side, in junior high, started washing trucks, sweeping the shop floor, mowing yards. That was where I got my first taste of the business. did that throughout high school. Went off to college at UNI and I hurried through school. I got done three years just so I could get back to the family business, it was that much of an interest to me.

Dan: Ok. And do you have siblings involved with you too? You know, you mentioned five in your generation.

Adrian: No. I have one younger sister, another UNI grad but she is not involved in the business. So of the five of the third generation that are involved, they're from three different families.

Dan: Sure. Your cousins and that kind of thing.

Adrian: Or excuse me, four different families.

Dan: Ok. And, are you at a stage now where, I don't know if you have kids or not Adrian, but if you do or if you have nieces and nephews do any of them start to show some interest in the business?

Adrian: So my son's a senior in high school this year and, and for the last four years, he's worked at the, at the office and he's planning on going to UNI next year. And I'm not sure if there's a strong desire for him to return to the business. It was a difficult conversation that I've had with several of my cousins and that sustaining a third generation, sustaining any family business is difficult, sustaining it from one generation to the next is another level of difficulty and then to try to take it from the third to the fourth generation. It gets really, really challenging and I think you have to be the business has to be at a scale, a very, very large scale to build support for that. And I don't feel our business is probably large enough to support a fourth generation to join it, which is difficult as we would like to see that. But yeah you gotta look at the business and make sure it's gonna work for the business. Even the person coming has value. You still gotta work and make it work for the business.

Dan: Yeah, have a spot on the bus that is appropriate and fit for them. And that's interesting, you bring that up, because certainly liquidity becomes a big, big issue for, you know, retiring cousins. In your case, often they call that cousin consortium or something along those lines, the third generation. And how do they find the ability to cash flow, payout owners? And, you know, I don't know if you have an approach where it's, is it required to be an active participant in the business to be an owner at this point in your family or do you not?

Adrian: Yes, we have that in place, correct. All the owners are still active in the business.

Dan: Ok. Well, it sounds like I'd love to get your advice for our listeners then at this point, Adrian as far as some of the things that you've already mentioned and some of the things I'm guessing you've already experienced just based on what you've said already. You know, as far as that active versus passive approach to ownership, I mean, have you experienced both or do you know that your family has always pushed for you've got to be an active member to be an owner and that has what's worked? And do you have any advice for other families along the lines of that topic?

Adrian: You know, I say, fortunately, really haven't had that conversation, at least in great depth. You know, Grandpa started the business.My dad, two uncles and an aunt after college, they all joined the business and at some point, they bought out Grandpa and had the ownership and where all of them are still active in the business today, that conversation hasn't really taken place as to whether you have to be active or not. I had one uncle that did retire probably, 78 years ago. And he wanted to, you know, I wanna say cash out, I don't like that word, but he wanted to sell his shares and it gave a few of us in the third generation an opportunity to have some ownership, buy into the company. And so I think it'd be very difficult to have non participating or non active owners in a business. I don't see how you can give them voting rights that makes it more challenging, especially when you're talking on a smaller scale. But they're not seeing the needs of the businesses on a day to day basis for them to have voting rights. It'd be very difficult in my opinion, but then having ownership of a company and not having any voting rights would be difficult as well. So, we've been fortunate that that really hasn't been much of an issue.

Dan: Ok. Do you, in light of your grandfather starting all of this, you said, he had thoughts of it being a family company at some point. I'm assuming he's passed on now, but maybe not. But what would he think of where things are at now for you guys, do you think?

Adrian: I kind of think he had that in the back of his mind. That his children would come into the business and part of that is because of the different businesses that were there. You know, there was a trucking side and my uncle kind of started off there and my dad started off in the gas stations and convenience stores and there was kind of a little bit of a niche that each person was in until we brought it all together. So, yeah, I would think that was maybe in the back of his mind. So, you know, he was very proud. He passed away in 94 I believe and I spent a lot of time visiting with him and he was adamant you had to go to college to return to the business. That was his requirement. You had to go to college and return to the family business and he wanted a place there for anybody that wanted to return to it.

Dan: So he did have that kind of a foresight of some requirements of family members, some hoops to jump through, if you will. And I think you've kept that going then even for your generation of the business then as well.

Adrian: Yes. And again, we're to the fourth generation and it is not really coming in yet. But that's one of those conversations you just have to have on a whole different scale, whether you can even support another generation or not. But, yes you have to go to college or have other experiences. So, I'm in the Iowa Senate and I'm the chairman of the Labor or Workforce Committee and I'm not as, I don't drink the kool-aid and think that everybody's got to go to college. I mean, there's many great professions that are not involved with college.

Dan: You employ a lot of them.

Adrian: Yeah, that's right. Our professional drivers are home every weekend. They're making 70-$80,000 a year. That's a pretty phenomenal pay for a person without a college experience. And that's very true with many businesses but college is great for many people. It's just not required for everybody, you got our trade schools, you know, the same way they feel a great need of educating people. So to me the college requirement is not maybe the way that my grandfather first thought it was.

Dan: But, that's a different time too, you know?

Adrian: Yeah, but the thought is you gotta go get experience somewhere, you know, graduate, maybe go somewhere for a couple years and work somewhere else. Not only does it give you experience, but I think it also gives you an appreciation if you're able to return to a family business that it's not a gravy train right? It's a job but there are some perks that come with it that you may not experience somewhere else. And experiencing that somewhere else might make you a little more aware of what those are.

Dan: Yeah, a little more appreciative probably. And a little more, maybe aware of how other people are doing things, bringing some value back to the family company too as well. This is kind of a last question maybe, but any kind of advice you might have for other Iowa family companies on getting to that third generation because, you know, only about a third of them make it to the second generation and you know most of that is because of, it's not because the business failed. It's because, the family side had difficulties and you made it, you know, you've already survived the odds. And so I didn't know if, if you had some thoughts on what's helped your family make it this far.

Adrian: Yeah. Actually in college, UNI, my thesis was on third generation family businesses a long, long time ago and I remember the statistics back then. This was in 94, 95 was, I think three out of 1000 make it to the third generation. It's just the odds are certainly against it. But what I tell, you know, I've talked with many family businesses and what I tell everybody, well, in our case, I was the first of the third generation to come back and when my other cousin returned, I told him you take the word fairness and you check it out the door. Because nothing here is fair. You know, you're very blessed. We're very blessed with the opportunities we have here, but nothing's fair. And you gotta do what's right for the people that work with you, and in your family, and more importantly, the business, right? You can't get the business on the back burner and avoid tough conversations because they're family members and tough conversations. But fairness, it gets checked at the door because fairness is only in the perception of the viewer, right? What I may think is fair, is completely different than a cousin of mine that may think is something that's fair. So, you know, you've got to be comfortable, everybody's got to be comfortable and happy and you can never bring up the word fair.

Dan: No, I think that's well said, and everybody has to have kind of the ability to talk through these things, so assumptions aren't made. And I think that's a great point. You mentioned you interact with a lot of family companies so probably as clients of your own company or, folks you interact with otherwise, are there things that you see other families not spend enough time on or, in hindsight, you wish they had done differently and maybe we'll end with that.

Adrian: Yeah, I think most family businesses are, you know, one of the downsides is that you're never off, you know, and you can't go on vacation, you're on 24/7 and that's one of the, I would say perks, that's just part of a family business. But I think because of that most family businesses may stretch themselves a little too thin when it comes to hiring others. I think if you're a business owner, you probably have more people typically around you to support the business. When you're a family business owner, you try to do more of it yourself or within the family. And I see often that family business seem to get stretched too thin, because they're wearing too many hats and, you know, other than the fairness, advice I give, the other big piece of advice is that don't stretch yourself too thin or, you know, try to keep it just among the family because it's difficult to do all this to the level that has to be done without getting burned out because again, you're on 24/7.

Dan: Yeah, I agree. I totally agree with that. I think sometimes it's hard, you know, to trust non family sometimes or that, you know, but you got away. The alternative is that you're burning the candle at both ends, potentially. So this is great advice for our Iowa family businesses, Adrian. And I really appreciate it. I appreciate your time. and your thoughts here and as well as that, I want to mention, we appreciate your service. Both, as a firefighter and also it sounds like you got a lot going on. So, very much appreciative. Yeah. Thank you again.

Adrian: Absolutely. Any time. Appreciate it, Dan, you guys are doing great work up there at UNI on this.

Katie: Thanks for listening to this episode of Never Go Against The Family, a podcast produced by the University of Northern Iowa Family Business Center. You can find more information about the center membership and upcoming events at https://unifamilybusinesscenter.com. As Vito Corleone advises, never go against the family.