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FATHER KNOWS BEST
For some, career choices run in the family
Tommy Estes, Bill Poston, Wycliffe Orr and Ron Brooks have much to celebrate this Father's Day. They not only enjoy loving, family ties with their adult children but also have formed even stronger bonds by working with them.
By the time he was 10, Estes was helping dig ditches and insulate ductwork for his father's company, Estes Heating & Air Conditioning Inc. "I tell people that I learned the business from the ground up," he said.
N.B. Estes started the company in 1949, after learning mechanics in the military. It was more floor furnaces than air conditioning in the beginning, but son Tommy did installations during the summers and on weekends as he was growing up, until he graduated with a degree in marketing from the University of West Georgia. He's now president of the company.
"My dad never pushed me, but when I got out in the real world, I thought it kind of foolish not to join the company. It was a good business and one I knew," he said.
Tommy Estes said he had to work harder than anyone else, but he also remembers his father's wisdom in letting him do things his way. "Dad was a pioneer and laid the foundation, but we've grown the business a lot in the last seven years and made it into the third generation."
A business administration graduate of Presbyterian College in South Carolina and former football player for the Carolina Panthers, Brian Estes, Tommy's son, said the decision was a "no-brainer."
"It was a good, profitable business, and Dad wanted me," he said.
Brian Estes also felt as though he had to go above and beyond to earn everyone's respect, but he's overseen the addition of new employees and moved the company into whole-house diagnostics. "We're adding to our core business, and I'm excited about the future."
Both agree that the father/son relationship has grown by working together. They know each other much better.
That's how the Poston family sees it, too. Clif Poston, executive vice president for Traton Homes, the residential developing and building company his father (Bill) and uncle (Milburn) founded in 1971, described the process as "growing up in the business" and "gaining a deeper perspective" of his father as a person.
"I spent a lot of time riding around in the back of the car as the silent third wheel, listening and watching how my uncle and dad bought land," said Poston, now a buyer himself. "As I was given more responsibility and faced challenges, they would say: 'We've been down this road before. Let us tell you what we did.'
"My brother and I definitely learned from what they had done and to respect their business philosophy. Today, the business is a good welding of their experience and ours."
Senior Vice President Chris Poston, who develops the communities, said that working with his close-knit family was a good fit. After all, his 87-year-old grandmother still works in the office.
"It seemed like the natural thing to do, since I'd grown up around it," he said.
Both sons graduated from the University of Georgia and took first jobs in banking and building supply before working for Traton.
"Anytime there was any danger of them not getting a college education, I'd have them lay sod for the summer -- that's the hardest job -- and they'd be glad to go back to school," said Bill Poston, company president, with a laugh.
Bill and Milburn's father had financially backed builders, but Bill's sons wanted to do the actual building. The name Poston Construction was taken, so the family came up with Traton -- after Milburn's daughter Tracy and Bill's son Clifton. In its 35th year, the company expects to close about $150 million in revenue this year.
Bill, Clif and Chris Poston all live in homes about a mile from one another and the new corporate headquarters. With four grandchildren, that suits Bill fine.
"I always hoped that my sons would carry on the business, and it's very rewarding to be able to work together. I get to relive the good and bad things from the past and see how they think," he said. "I was always a hard dealer, but fair, and they seem to have picked up on that."
"You're really only as good as your word -- no more, no less," agreed Clif Poston.
Watching his father deal with people gave Clif insight into how his father and uncle became successful. "That's been as valuable as anything I've learned," he said.
Close-knit doesn't mean squabble-free, however.
"Someone said that if all the partners in a business agree, you've got too many partners," Bill Poston said. "But the nice thing about family businesses is that you can disagree, hug and go on your way."
Kris Orr calls the ability to say something to her father that she might not say to another law partner "upfrontness."
"There are times you have the leeway of being a bit shorter with each other, because the father/daughter relationship is always still there," Orr said. "Still, it's been interesting to grow into making decisions together as adults, on an even footing."
Orr always knew she'd be a lawyer.
"It was never pressed on me, but it is what I heard talked about growing up at the dinner table -- law and politics," she said.
Her father had served in the Georgia General Assembly, and her mother, Lyn, was the president of the League of Women Voters in Hall County.
So, after her 1995 graduation from law school at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., she asked to join her dad's firm (now Orr & Orr). She commutes to Gainesville from Atlanta, where her husband, David Brown, is an attorney with McKenna, Long and Aldridge.
"When Kris went so far to college (Boston University) and law school, I didn't know she'd be back," Wycliffe Orr said. "I was surprised, honored and very happy when she asked."
Finding the right working balance was a challenge in the beginning. "There was the need to serve as a mentor and appropriately share my several decades of experience, yet not tell her how to do everything," he said.
In 11 years, the father and daughter have written briefs and tried cases together.
Wycliffe Orr said "getting to know each other better, picking each other's brains and bouncing ideas off one another" have been wonderful experiences, and clients benefit from the points of view of two genders and generations.
"Any parent lucky enough to be involved in raising a child and see her become a functioning citizen of the world, and getting to see her every day -- that's about as good as it gets," he said.
Or almost as good as it gets: Kris Orr is expecting twins in another month -- the first grandchildren in the family. As her law partner, Wycliffe Orr is busy rearranging work schedules; as her father and an anxious grandfather, he's telling her "that she doesn't need to come back too soon."
Sometimes a family business isn't the result of one generation's following another but of both jumping in together. Such was the case with Ron Brooks and his son, Bret.
Bret had been selling software and Ron had retired from the corporate world, but Bret always had wanted to open a restaurant.
"I was fascinated and felt like it was my niche," Bret Brooks said. "When I began seriously talking about it and knew we needed more backing, my wife said it had to be someone we could trust. I figured, who better than Dad?"
"I told him he had to have the right concept and location," Ron Brooks said. "He wanted to do barbecue and I knew he could do that, and when we found the location in Technology Square, everything just melded together."
They ran the numbers, researched other restaurants and opened 5th St. Ribs n Blues in October 2003.
Ron and Judy Brooks' goal was to help their son achieve his dream. "We had always had a close relationship, and that made it possible to be in business together," Ron Brooks said. "We've gotten even closer, but the first few months were tough. We had four different opinions on everything."
Father and son are still hands-on owners, working different shifts. Bret takes the lead in managing the restaurant and Ron does the books.
"It's key in this business to stay involved and to have a partner you can trust, no matter what," Bret Brooks said.
"In my case, my partner isn't only looking out for the business but also the family."
