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Part Two of Podcast Series on Women Business Leaders Navigating the Challenges of Running a Family Business Released by Family Enterprise USA
Episode Features Women Executives from Aggregate Resources and Blazer Industries Now Available on Spotify
Building trust fast and managing new leadership transitions are some of the topics tackled in a new podcast on “Woman in Family Business,” hosted by Family Enterprise USA.
The second episode on the subject is now available on Spotify and other podcast platforms. The podcast covers the barriers, challenges, and opportunities women face in family-owned businesses in the past, present, and future.
The second episode features Katie Jeremiah, Chief Executive Officer, Aggregate Resources Industries and Paetra Orueta, Executive Vice President, Blazer Industries.
The podcast series, called “The Voice of Family Business on Capitol Hill,” is hosted by Pat Soldano, President, Family Enterprise USA, advocates in Washington, D.C., for family businesses. She is also President of a sister organization, Policy and Taxation Group, which advocates for successful individuals and family offices.
Building Trust
Among the many challenges women face in business, the two women business leaders first discuss building trust within the workforce.
“You have to avoid having a chip on your shoulder,” says Jeremiah. “You need to earn trust fast and first impressions are key, and sometimes you need to grow a thick skin,” she says.
Jeremiah’s company, Aggregate Resources has 94 employees and provides rock drilling, blasting, and contractor services throughout western states and Hawaii.
Family dynamics are another challenging factor to navigate in family businesses for many women owners and operators.
For Orueta’s company, Blazer Industries, she found that a 50/50 split in the business ownership between her and her brother was an issue that took some time to resolve.
“My mother wanted my brother and I to take over the company evenly, but I was not as involved as my brother was at the time,” Orueta says. “The were some issues to overcome at first, but we were able to calm those rough waters now that I am fully involved.”
Orueta’s Blazer Industries has 160 employees and makes modular buildings out of Aumsville, Oregon.
Transitioning and Managing Change
In the episode, Soldano discusses how when a family business needs to make the transition to the next generation of leadership unresolved issues can bubble to the surface.
“When my parents started the transition, we did it slow,” says Jeremiah. “We didn’t want to make massive changes, nothing major,” she says. “We built a lot of the transition with the help of our customers too.”
Changing and expanding federal, state, and local regulations are also tough to navigate, the women business leaders agree on during the episode. In addition, when it comes to tax policy, “the moving goal posts” of taxation policies are also a top priority.
“In the housing market we are constantly trying to stay ahead of changing code compliance state by state,” says Orueta. “We’re having a hard time meeting all the new requirements and understand what new ones are coming,” she says. “That’s our top issue.”
When it comes to taxation, Jeremiah sees uncertainty as the biggest challenge.
“The uncertainty of it is what bothers us,” she says. “Since we buy a lot of heavy equipment it’s important that policies stay in place, but the goal posts are always moving.”
To hear the full podcast, click on: Family Enterprise USA Podcast.
“Keeping tax policies consistent is critical for family businesses,” says Soldano on the tax discussions. “In order to plan, reinvest, and provide for employees and community, it’s vital that family businesses, and the next generation of women leaders in family businesses, can count on tax policies that don’t harm the growth of America’s largest private employer, family business,” she said.
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The need for fact-based reporting of issues important to multi generational businesses and protecting a lifetime of savings has never been greater. Now more than ever, multi generational businesses and family businesses are under fire. That's why Family Enterprise USA is passionately working to increase the awareness of issues important to generationally-owned family businesses built on hard work, while continuing to strengthen our presence on Capitol Hill. The issues we fight for or against with Congress in Washington DC include high income tax rates, possible elimination of valuation discounts, increase in capital gains tax, enactment of a wealth tax, and the continued burden of the gift tax, estate tax and generation skipping tax.
Family Enterprise USA promotes generationally owned family business creation, growth, viability, and sustainability by advocating for family businesses and their lifetime of savings with Congress in Washington DC. Since 2007, Family Enterprise USA has represented and celebrated all sizes, professions and industries of family-owned enterprises and multi-generational employers. It is a bi-partisan 501.c3 organization. Family foundations can donate.
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