Transcript
Michael (00:04.366)
Welcome everybody to the Family Bidding Show. I'm your host, Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. And we've got a really exciting show for you for lots of different reasons. This is going to take some twists that we haven't talked about before with some strategic alliances and liquidity events, still at the heart of it is the values and the foundation of a family-owned business. So welcome, Brad and Olivia Mountz.
Michael (00:33.198)
Appreciate you guys coming here today. And your business is, it's Mountz Incorporated, correct? I got that. I just had a moment where I'm like, yeah, so Mountz, you guys are in San Jose. So really appreciate you joining us today. We typically like to kick off with, you know, a little bit of history about yourself in terms of, you know, what was your path?
Brad (00:35.426)
Thank you.
Michael (01:02.528)
into the family business. What was that like for you and how did that go? And then we'll go into history of the, and then we'll dive back into history of the business and we'll kind of ping pong this around with all the things that have been going on for the two of you.
Brad (01:17.026)
Cool, cool. Well, Olivia, if you don't mind, I'll start since I was first before you in the family business.
Olivia (01:24.814)
I was gonna say age before beauty, but.
Brad (01:26.971)
yes, exactly.
Michael (01:28.59)
Well done,
Michael (01:29.403)
well done.
Olivia (01:30.786)
Yeah, please go for it.
Brad (01:32.15)
Yeah, so I've lost on both of those accounts, age and beauty. So yeah, I'll go first. So yeah, I never really wanted to be in the family business. It just happened that my dad was pretty crafty and he would keep me around and keep me interested and keep me motivated. They often say that if you want to teach a kid to golf, don't take him to the golf course and force him to golf.
Brad (02:01.186)
let him have a fishing pole and fish in the ponds while you're golfing. I think that's what my dad did to me. And I just kind of naturally grew interested in it because it wasn't forced upon me or there wasn't an expectation set that I had to do it. And so I joined, you know, like a lot of kids, my first time card was when I was like seven years old. I swept the floor for 15 minutes and pet the cat for four hours, this kind of stuff.
Brad (02:31.234)
But when I did get serious in the business, came in the early 90s and I worked in every position in the company. My dad is an old school guy. He isn't going to give shares to all of his children or his siblings or anybody else in the family. You're going to have to prove that you can make it. that's that's I started on the factory floor and machining parts and sweeping the floor properly and then work.
Michael (03:00.686)
How old were you then?
Brad (03:02.51)
Um, I'd say, you know, when I first was, I was probably in the nearly graduating college in those years where you're looking for beer money and trying to figure out how to get, go on a date and that kind of stuff. And so he had me working part time, but when I started working full time, it was probably 22, 23 years old, just after college. Yeah. And, and so I kind of grew organically, I think to the role of
Brad (03:32.238)
to roles that were available. And my dad's advice was, if you can continue to show, you continue to continue to prosper in these roles and you're working for somebody else who's coming to me saying, hey, I think this guy can be really good at this role or this role, then you can keep growing in the organization. And it finally got to the point where I was pretty much running the company. And by the time I was given the nod to be president, it was sort of already
Brad (04:02.24)
Had been done, so to speak. I just needed the blessing. Sure.
Michael (04:08.13)
So you're one of the ones that, you you didn't spend three years or five years working for somebody else and say, dad, let me back in, please. It was just kind of, you know, like you said, it wasn't forced upon you, but, you know, just kind of gradually, that's the way that it went.
Brad (04:27.66)
It did. Olivia's role was different. Like we want her mother and I really wanted her to go out, find a good first job in a, in an environment where she could learn and be trained and bring skillsets to the organization if she ever wanted to come. We didn't force that on her, but I'll let her tell that.
Michael (04:48.11)
Olivia,
Michael (04:48.55)
tell us your path.
Olivia (04:51.31)
So as my dad mentioned, mine was a little bit different. When I graduated from college, it was very important to me to go do something else just for myself and quite honestly to feel like I could be successful without my last name behind me. so I was able to go do that, really had a fantastic first job and experience. And then actually what led me to the organization was that my grandpa who is
Olivia (05:20.334)
my dad's referencing, he passed away. And we had a really big celebration of life. And at that celebration of life, I just really looked around and saw, you know, the community within the company that he built, he had built and how many lives he had really impacted. mean, there were just hundreds of people there. And so that's when I decided that the timing was right.
Olivia (05:44.078)
And I basically sat down with my dad and we had a conversation on like my skill set and where it would make sense for me to go. So I actually started about eight years ago. I thought I was going to work at the company. If I'm being honest, not not this long. But that said, I started actually working underneath our head of sales. So as a direct report, I was a few levels down from my dad, which was great. So
Olivia (06:13.804)
I definitely wasn't sweeping or on the floor. That was not my style. I'm more of the sales and marketing business operations side of the house. So I worked in the organization on some strategic initiatives, eventually built my way up. I actually moved to London, which was probably my favorite part of working at Mounds thus far, to open up an office right after I got married.
Olivia (06:40.99)
And my husband and I had a fantastic time until a little thing called COVID had a different plan. And I actually, when I was in London, that's when a opportunity had opened up for me to basically be a direct report to the CEO or president, which was my dad. And the stars aligned and I moved back and I've been in my role as director of marketing and sales operations ever since.
Michael (07:09.262)
Congratulations. And very cool that, know, again, two different paths, you know, Brad, you and your wife, said you talked about that a little bit. Where did that conversation come from? And, you what spurred that for you guys? Because you didn't take that route.
Brad (07:26.252)
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. you my parents, think transparency is one of the things we've really tried to focus on with my parents and their wealth management. My children have been part of that transparency in my parents estate planning. So we had had a lot of discussions around these kind of topics. You know, the family dinner table at Mountz household.
Brad (07:54.408)
One rule was we're not going to talk about the mechanics of business, but we're going to talk about the lifestyle of having a company and how it impacts people within the family. so
Olivia (08:07.834)
being honest, we didn't always abide by those rules. And my mom played a very, very important role of bringing, you know, bringing us back and keeping us centered.
Brad (08:19.596)
Yeah.
Brad (08:20.267)
And so I think one of the things that maybe I had regretted, I've come not to regret it, but you mentioned it earlier, which is I was around the business from the time of college and after and didn't go work anywhere else. I mean, had some part-time jobs. worked for UPS. I did some things like that, but never a full-time job. My first full-time job was with my
Brad (08:46.028)
my father's company working for one of his direct reports. But so I think what I wanted for Olivia, what my wife and I wanted and it matched up to Olivia's personality and her wants was to get out and find some other avenues of success. Because I always felt like, you know, I always felt a little bit like a one trick pony. Like my wife would often say, and this comes up in family business, you don't always earn the same amount of money in a family business, at least initially.
Brad (09:15.914)
as you would if you're out in the competing in the public domain. And my wife would always say, you know, I want to make sure that our children come into the business, they feel they know what their worth is. Whereas with you, Brad, your worth is kind of what you're you've agreed with your parents what your worth is. Right. And so I was willing to sacrifice that going in because I long play for me was
Brad (09:41.462)
I wanted to have, if I did, if I could show that I could grow the company and run it properly, I really wanted the shares of the business was what I wanted. And so I had to prove that I could do that. For Olivia, it was different. had already proven she could be successful outside of the family business. Now it was just trying to figure out if we could afford her. Cause frankly,
Brad (10:07.918)
She was making a lot more money than we were willing to pay in the beginning.
Michael (10:12.962)
Fair. No, that's one of the risks of doing that piece is that somebody does excel outside and it's like, how do we put all this together? Good for you. I'm happy that it worked out. Let's go back in time a little bit. Your father starts this business. What's he doing? Day one. What is Mountz all about when he started and when did he start and where did the
Michael (10:41.07)
you know, the idea for this come from for him.
Brad (10:44.622)
So my father was always in this kind of tool related business in his career, either at a distributor or later working for a company, an American company who had transferred him to Europe to run their first operation in Europe. And I happen to be, I'm a victim of circumstance. I was actually born in Holland where my parents were stationed. And so that, I think what,
Brad (11:14.22)
What my dad was, was a natural entrepreneur. He did not like to be told what to do. He liked to organize things on his own. He was creative in the sense that he was a very good salesperson and was capable of, of meeting customer needs. He was obsessed about customer satisfaction and quality. And these are values that still remain at Mountz today. Even after the acquisition two years ago, nearly two years ago.
Brad (11:41.698)
we're still focused on those values of quality and customer satisfaction and frankly, employee engagement as maybe one of the biggest metrics and goals and objectives we have for the business. So yeah, and that's how it came. My dad was not an engineer. I am not an engineer. I have engineers who work for me, but it is an engineering product firm for sure.
Brad (12:11.456)
At the end of the day, we've grown just by taking care of customers and making sure we're obsessed with their outcomes, wanting to make sure that when they buy from Mountz, they get exactly what they want and more, that their experience is really, really top notch.
Michael (12:30.242)
Got it. And just describe for some people that don't know who Mounce is, what are some of the products and what is that? Where would you see those products in the world?
Brad (12:38.648)
Yeah, absolutely. You'll never see them at a Home Depot or a Lowe's or any place like that. Where you're gonna see them is on the world's biggest factory floors, the Boeings, the automotive companies that you mentioned in our pre-discussion, Apple Computer, medical equipment manufacturers, anywhere where there's critical fastening requirements, where you're trying to put some two pieces together and ensure that they stay together.
Brad (13:06.798)
heart valves, catheters, know, robotic surgical equipment, just to use some extreme ones that you want to make sure they're right.
Michael (13:15.278)
never would have put those in that mix, but like, you know, a torque wrench, just at the smallest level is when you're putting an engine together, which is the world I knew it from, is, you you don't want to over torque it, otherwise you're going to warp things.
Michael (13:30.958)
And now when you start talking about it in catheters and robotics and some of the big giant Boeing, of course, they know exactly the foot point, their foot pounds that it needs to be measured down to. That's pretty cool.
Brad (13:49.804)
These are our customers, the world's largest names that depend on products like ours to ensure that there's work properly and meet all the safety requirements, meet all ergonomic requirements, meet compliance requirements from regulated industries. So yeah, that's our customer base.
Michael (14:09.858)
Love it. Olivia, when you think about growing up, listening to some of the stories, what are some of the stories that you're most proud of as you've heard the things about what your grandfather and then your father led with the company? And what do remember on the flip of that is some moments where it was like you knew that they were stressed and they made it through.
Olivia (14:37.758)
Yes. Gosh, there's so many. So I think the first one I'll answer when I knew that they were stressed. So my grandma actually in their house, she had a little office and all my grandfather's letterhead because you know, pre back in the day, I guess when we still wrote with paper, he had all of that like fancy letterhead and so
Olivia (15:03.426)
As a child, I always knew it was serious when my grandma would put my sister and I in the office because they would have conversations and we would basically go into the office where then I would boss my little sister around having her be my admin while they were dealing with serious stuff. The example, think, obviously I can't remember what year it was exactly, but the big, I think housing crisis is the official term and
Olivia (15:32.738)
when the whole world sort of felt the stress, remember that, but I was pretty shielded to be honest. Like I never really understood until I was older and actually in the business. I would say my parents and grandparents did a good job of that. When I got into the business, the biggest stressor was COVID obviously, being a part of the organization, running a...
Olivia (15:58.382)
being brand new literally in my director position and then COVID hit. But weirdly that challenge ended up being an exciting one and a really good one for our organization. It was like the best year at that point to date that we had had. We had really shifted our business model to support our customers. So that would be my answer for sort of the stressful and challenging component and the memories.
Olivia (16:27.11)
One last thing is we also had a coach, my dad and I, we still have not as often who was very helpful in guiding us through stress in general or communication and conflict. So I would say that that was one of our best decisions in terms of stress. But shifting over to the other side, what am I most?
Olivia (16:52.76)
proud of, well, I would say probably two things. One, how we handled COVID because that was the scariest thing I've faced thus far in my career and how we came out on top from a revenue perspective and a customer support perspective. One of the big days that we had was when, God, was it Ford or GM? think it was GM. So they flipped their facility to start making medical equipment and all of our product was used. And that's when the vice president
Olivia (17:21.518)
Pence at the time was going through and we actually had, you know, he was exposed to us and our brand and that that was quite a success story for us. So that was surely a proud moment. But quite honestly, I think that that the acquisition is one of one of my proudest moments. And I say that from both sides, like it's an emotional rate decision, obviously, happy and sad at the same time, I guess would be the best way putting it but
Olivia (17:52.306)
You know, I think if my grandfather was alive, sort of the backstory of the acquisition, I had sat down with my dad, interestingly enough, right before I was pregnant with my first child. And I just sort of said to my dad, like we knew I was the only Mountz child at that point that was, you know, even open to the idea of taking over my dad's role or family member for that matter. And my dad had, you know,
Olivia (18:19.412)
opportunities to potentially sell the company had always been there for him. And we basically had this hard conversation where I just sort of said to him, you know, it's really, it's tough for me because I am a woman and I'm in my childbearing years. And this is also my really big career development years. And I'm going to choose family. Like that's what my husband and I decided that we were going to have kids. And I watched my dad my whole life traveling literally all over the world.
Olivia (18:47.712)
And I understood the commitment that he made to the company. And I was not, I knew in my heart, I was not going to be able to do that the same way that he was because, you know, there's a lot of sacrifice and a lot of stuff that he had to miss out on to, for the success of the organization and all of our, all of the people that work for it. And so we had this conversation and we basically looked at each other and sort of said, okay, well,
Olivia (19:16.302)
you know, what number do we think grandpa would be proud of if we sold it and what type of company and most importantly, like who would take care of our employees the same way that we do, right? Those like critical valuable pieces. And so we came up with a number and we both just looked at each other and said, let's give it all we've got for like 10 years and try to hit that number. And as fate would have it, we had two of the types of the biggest companies that could, you know, in our industry.
Olivia (19:45.93)
approach us within one week. It was kind of crazy. And we went on this wild journey of exploring both acquisitions at the same time. Now, I don't know if we ever formally told them that, but, it was pretty crazy. I mean, we just couldn't believe it. And so we ultimately selected the organization that we felt, you know, represented our values the most. And obviously our employees have just become extensions of our family. have
Olivia (20:15.604)
We have people that have worked for our company for so we've got veterans. Yeah, there's so many and the loyalty is so incredible both ways us to them and them to us. So I honestly in conclusion to this very long winded answer, I really think that the acquisition is is was the thing I'm the most proud of.
Brad (20:19.63)
42 years.
Michael (20:39.63)
Awesome. You mentioned coaching and I want to flip it over to Brad for second. I can see behind you, you've got shelves of books back there. What was the first person that sparked that interest to say, I need to learn more to continue to grow in my role? Because obviously that's what that means is that you're a lifelong learner.
Brad (21:02.828)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, here's the thing. I never finished college. I left with about four classes left. I was impatient. I wanted to get out. And once I made a commitment to my dad, I wanted to do it. And so that's driven a lifelong learning sort of desire in me. And so I turned to my wife probably after I started really knowing what the company was going to be about. And I said, honey, the only
Brad (21:31.566)
people at my board meeting have the last name Mountz with the exception of our corporate lawyer. I got to diversify this board. You got to help me go out and find some industry people who are, you know, have made it, they're in their forties or fifties and they'd love to mentor and tutor me. I'm willing to pay them a retainer of something, but it can't, it's not going to be a lot. So my wife helped me recruit four
Brad (22:00.66)
additional board members outside directors with without the name Mountz and that kind of changed my perspective. I now had somebody who would appraise me set my salary because my dad was he was he was not the greatest at that. He was just that wasn't his forte. He would give you a verbal appraisal if he felt you deserved it. It usually wasn't a positive things right? So in any case
Brad (22:30.368)
That helped me at least open my mind to it. And then I read this book called the flight of the buffalo, which is an amazing business book written by a family run a family owned businessman who finally realized that doing it all himself was the most feudal thing he could ever take on. And so it's about his metamorphosis, his chain, his paradigm shift, his mind shift.
Brad (23:00.526)
to actually hire the right kind of people, empower them with the right kind of values and culture and let them go do the work. And so I started to create an executive management team. I joined Vistage, which was very helpful to me. This is where I met some of my, some of the people that have later become coaches and friends of mine. And I brought those people, including the directors.
Brad (23:28.69)
the outside directors and any coach. I didn't want them just coaching me. I wanted them coaching my executive team. So come in and you Olivia find a mentor amongst these five or six people we have a Daniel, the head of sales, find a mentor. My ops manager, find a mentor, my finance person. And they helped, you know, create this culture that Mountz was going somewhere, other than just
Brad (23:57.934)
So the buffalo started to fly, right? And that's how it kind of took off for me. It was just one day really realizing I'm never going to be able to run this business the way my dad did. Hands on everything myself. I have to change. And so that's what really changed our culture. That's what helped us grow. That's ultimately, think, probably got us to have strategic people coming to look at us.
Michael (24:27.018)
Nice Olivia when when the coach idea was introduced to you for the first time meaning like I it was it was emotional stuff. It was the stress. was family dynamics kind of stuff is what I'm hearing which is not typical for a lot of family businesses. They they're still on the operational side. The coach that can you know help them see what they can't see about the business. This was somebody that was helping you talk about the the the family and your relationship.
Michael (24:56.738)
Tell me what was that like for you coming from the corporate background and...
Olivia (25:03.488)
Yeah, so very interesting. I came from a very intense corporate background. No, no frills, no BS if you will. Very strict training. Didn't really care about your opinion. You just hit your number kind of thing. So then I came into the family business and I had two coaches. So I had the traditional coach which you're talking about. Fantastic mentor leader and now friend of mine who helped advise me on all the business stuff, but then my
Olivia (25:33.32)
my second coach, which was also my dad's executive coach who were referencing this emotional coach, if you will, who's also become a great friend now. It was it was interesting. But I, to be honest, I was open to it. And I really, really respected him and liked him. He had been very successful here in Silicon Valley, sold his company, and basically realized, you know, it was very lonely at the top. And he dedicated his
Olivia (26:02.648)
career or the second part of his career to coaching executives. So to be honest, I felt very honored that he wanted to work with me. And it really, it really, I would say that my dad and I have been able to work together. Probably he's a large part of it and why we, we have a much different relationship than my dad and grandpa, obviously father, son, or father, daughter. So the dynamics are a little bit different. My dad's a girl dad.
Olivia (26:31.05)
So he's got three girls. He's a totally different character than his father in that regard. But we are both similar in the sense that we are very stubborn. We're very passionate. We're very high energy. So we had to learn, which I learned through Nader, our coach, executive coach, like how to set ourselves up to have successful conversations and navigate conflict.
Olivia (26:59.718)
That I think is really why we've been able to work together for so long. Obviously, personal relationship helps. But a great example is a few days ago, we got into a meeting in the morning and I could sense that my dad was like, I don't know if he wants to talk about this. So I just asked him, is this a good time to talk about this versus maybe in the beginning, I would just start going in on the agenda.
Olivia (27:27.378)
not paying attention to how he was feeling. And then we were able to sort of reset and be like, okay, great. Yeah, let's continue. But I think the emotional piece is just was really, really critical. And honestly, great for me, just as an executive dealing with my peers too, because you're always going to come across different personality types, and people are going to work differently. Interestingly enough, he brought to us this, what he calls a disc assessment.
Olivia (27:54.734)
And we all got birds, which we put on our computers or like in our working space. So we could understand this is the type of bird I am and here's the type of bird you are. And we literally had this book that was like, okay, if I'm going to successfully work with this person, here's how I have to approach them. And that exercise in itself was just life-changing for me because I feel like ever since I acquired that skill, I've been able to get what I want done.
Olivia (28:24.174)
quicker and in a more positive way with whoever I'm working with, not just at work, but in life in general.
Michael (28:32.418)
hats off, I have not heard somebody converting disc scores into birds. I love that, I wanna go looking for that. I know I'm a high DI. And so we do Palumbos family vacation and being a Vistage, emotional intelligence, coach myself, always looking to coach my own family on ideas, even though we don't have
Michael (29:01.388)
the operating business, dad retired, I bought it, end of story. But there's 24 of us, 25 of us, and they're all different personalities. And so we had a disc coach come in and just do like a three hour session after everybody took it. And at first they're all like, what are we doing this for? We're wasting valuable vacation time. And then they got done and they're like, this was really cool. Now I understand why you this and you that. So even doing it within the family.
Michael (29:30.798)
Michael (29:31.359)
roles I think is fun to do sometimes. And you talked about you as an executive, my gut would also say that that also goes into marriage and my personal life is like, if I'm better at work, then I'm probably better at home as well.
Olivia (29:49.09)
Yeah, totally.
Brad (29:50.316)
And that's an important recognition for everything. I give sometimes educational courses at community college or university. I talk a lot about customer experience. But one of the things that always turns heads on people is when I say, I don't put the customer first. And people go, what? What are you talking about? I said, I put the employee first.
Brad (30:18.912)
If the employee is having a bad day, if they're worried about money, if they're worried about whether they can take a day off to be home with their sick child, if they're worried about their pregnancy leave isn't long enough to support what they're trying to accomplish, whatever the case might be, I need new tires on my car and I can't afford it. If they don't feel that they have the trust to sit down and talk to somebody at your company about that, either me,
Brad (30:45.93)
HR, Olivia as a director, somebody as a director, they're not going to take care of your customers in the way that you want them to take care of. So you've got to give them an environment where they feel truly loved and cared for. And I think that's the reason why Mountz has won what now 10 consecutive best workplace awards in Silicon Valley. It's the reason why, and it all comes from an engagement score.
Brad (31:14.347)
It doesn't come from us saying we're the best. It comes from the employees looking at it. And actually, and they're tough critics. It's harder and harder to understand every year because of their expectations.
Olivia (31:26.478)
So we live in the land of Google and Apple and Facebook. So to be a business competing with them when we can't even begin to start to try, you know, it's not easy.
Brad (31:38.882)
Yeah, it's not easy, but that's something that I really take pride in and I really try to shock people with that is I'm not going to tell you I don't care about the customer. do, but I care about my employees first because I know if they're taken care of, they will take great care of our customer.
Michael (31:56.596)
Awesome. Let's, I'm looking at the time and obviously I think I could do about five sessions with the two of you. So just see, and sometimes it just goes and I'm like, okay. Talk about what you can in regards to this transition. And you've given a little bit about it, but what does that look like for you guys going forward? How much control?
Michael (32:23.68)
Are you keeping how much you know what's changed and what did that what did that all come together like?
Brad (32:29.292)
Yeah, let's talk about it from two perspectives. One is how it impacts the family dynamic because that's really, really important for people to understand. And Olivia probably has some input there. And then number two, how it's actually gone and how, how, we're doing in this new environment. I think how it affects the family dynamic is interesting. Number one, I was the largest shareholder in the business and I felt like I had earned that. My brothers had
Brad (32:57.804)
decided to go other ways and not really stick it out in the family business. And I hadn't made a decision yet. I was focused on Olivia becoming the next CEO. And of course there would have been a transition of shares to her over time the same way it would have happened to me. But I think what happens when you sell the business is that at first everybody with a last name Mountz has to realize that all of the things that you could do before as a private company are now
Brad (33:27.628)
You really, you have to ask somebody if you can do them, right? Because you're now working for a publicly traded company that may not give, want to give Rolex watches to every 25 year anniversary recipient in the company, of which we have probably 30 Rolexes in wearers in our business, right? These kinds of things change somewhat the dynamic in the family as well as, okay, well,
Brad (33:56.77)
Olivia may have been sitting there thinking, well, ultimately one day I'm going to inherit these shares and be able to do what you just did, Dad. Now it's a discussion of, we've just created generational wealth for our family. This is, and we now have that start to have discussions about how that's going to benefit the family. And these are important topics to not ignore. Otherwise you start to get family members confused and, and worried and
Brad (34:25.77)
wondering what is going to happen next for them. I think part of the dialogue in selling the company is you have to open it up to discussion about what this means for the family long term. think, you we haven't finished that. That's never finished by the way. It's ongoing process, but we have the ability to do that. We have a family limited partnership where all the daughters are all
Brad (34:54.496)
limited partners, they have the ability to speak up, talk, talk about what they'd like to have happen with the partnership, et cetera. And so that's very, a very helpful platform to build on these discussions. Now, Olivia, you want to add anything to that? And then do you want to take on the piece about how it's gone since we've sold?
Olivia (35:18.862)
Sure. I think probably if you ask my sister, my mom and my brother, they're very happy because my dad and I took up a lot of airspace. I mean, just naturally getting into it. And it's changed our dynamic that at holidays, we're all talking about each other and our lives. And there's a lot of grandkids now. So, you know,
Olivia (35:45.486)
It's different, right? There really is no business conversation. In fact, my mom, it's kind of a joke now. She'll go, I don't need to hear about it anymore. Like I'm not on the payroll. So don't even talk about it. So all in all, that part is positive from the interpersonal. Now what has happened since post acquisition? Well, like I mentioned before, we selected the organization of Snap-on ultimately because we felt in our heart and in our guts that
Olivia (36:14.478)
what they were saying was true, which was we are acquiring your brand. You have something that we don't have in our portfolio yet. So we're actually looking to you to guide us in this space. So when they bought us, was like, we promise we're not going to do anything for two years to your organization. not going to, we don't want to come in and like, you know, private equity, blow it all up, basically cut everyone out. And they did that so far. They've honored their commitment. And so
Olivia (36:44.254)
For me, really, my world hasn't changed much at all. There's more stress because we're part of a publicly traded company and we have to hit our numbers. But it's kind of interesting because we're, you know, they give us some aggressive goals that, you know, we look at and I wouldn't sometimes I think, God, that's a big stretch. But we've done it thus far. Right. And so we have pushed ourselves. And I think.
Olivia (37:11.532)
For my dad, you have the biggest change because you now have a boss. And it's like our organization just basically reports in into him and everything else for everyone else, nothing changed. But that said, we have been doing very well. So there's no reason that they would want to change anything. Who knows in the event things change, you know, we may feel differently.
Olivia (37:35.822)
we, we may not want to be a part of the game anymore if that's the case, but for right now, because they're really allowing us to operate so freely, we're, you know, the general pulse from the organization is very good. At first, everyone was terrified. Obviously it was emotional. My dad came in, we told everyone in person and he made a commitment to them to stay and make sure everything was going to be okay. We all did.
Olivia (38:02.422)
And now it's just kind of business, we're chugging along business as usual.
Michael (38:07.168)
Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Nice job. guys, you know, Brad, for you to be open to the coaching, for you to be open and looking at other ideas and then sharing that with Olivia and your team. I'm a giant fan. do. It's funny because I heard what you do with, you know, a whole bunch of different coaches, you know, people helping everybody out.
Michael (38:30.606)
I love that. I also love when we're getting coached together by the same person so that we're all on the same page and whatnot, which is how I tend to do it with my people. at the same time, as you're saying that, as the business gets more complex, and this is where, before we even started, Brad, I started telling you about where we're going. And as the business gets more complex and bigger and the family
Michael (38:57.602)
becomes more complicated. You had it right from the get-go where there was brothers that were owning the business, owners in the business that weren't working in the business. It sounds like Olivia, you had the same situation as we're talking about. It's like we have this estate plan that we're trying to get to, to take care of it. The tax tail is wagging the dog. At the same time, we're trying to put all these other pieces together.
Michael (39:23.726)
That is about the most complicated thing that you can get to. And my realization was that, Michael, you can't do all this. so as we're growing, we're bringing in more business coaches and more family dynamics people so that we can pull all of that stuff off. then the idea being that, we're ready for this. going to be the first time I'm saying this on here. What we've done is created what I call the family business flywheel.
Michael (39:51.234)
The flywheel has to keep turning, growing the company, managing the wealth, keeping the complexity down and making sure that the family stays sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table together. And if you don't balance all three of those things, it's going to fall apart. You too, and your dad and your brothers and everybody, you've done that well.
Brad (40:13.649)
I'm certainly proud of that. am. And it takes because my dad and I, if you go back to the beginning of our relationship, there was a lot of friction. There was that male friction that is so common. And I'm blessed to have daughters because the last thing you ever want to do is see, I mean, you can see a son cry and tell him to toughen up, but when a daughter
Brad (40:36.206)
is hurt by something you say, you tend to not want to say it that way a second time. So so we've developed a great relationship with the help of other people, too, for sure. I think it's always helpful to have outside support. But, I mean, I I feel like the 40 years that I well, I didn't quite get 40 years, 35 years that I worked with my dad in retrospect.
Brad (41:04.334)
is one of the things that I'm most proud of in my life. And I know that Olivia joined the company to have some part of her life sharing that with me, which now makes it double meaningful for me, right? So yeah, going forward, we don't know what we don't know yet. We don't know what will happen, but we do know that we sold the company to a group of people that are...
Brad (41:32.788)
really people forward and care about people. They're a good publicly traded company. And we know that so far we can operate within their world and be successful and produce for the business, which is a wonderful feeling. And I don't believe we've lost any employees that have left because they didn't feel there was opportunity or
Brad (42:01.046)
or a chance to succeed or grow more.
Olivia (42:04.686)
Yeah.
Michael (42:05.934)
Congrats.
Brad (42:06.894)
Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it.
Michael (42:09.57)
Yeah, no, when you see it, you got to call it out because we see the other side of the coin too often. And it doesn't have to be that way. That's why I existed because my wife just retired in June. Congrats, Victoria. And we talked about this. like, we could stop now and it'd be OK.
Michael (42:35.948)
And she's like, you've taken 15 years to come up with this idea and the concept of the flywheel and the family business, family office. You've got to get this out into the world so that people don't have to go through what they don't have to go through.
Brad (42:49.55)
And you get to a state where you find success because of so many failures, right? mean, yes, over and over, we could fill another show with stories about the learning lessons we got to get to the point where we could understand how to do it differently. And this is one of the things Olivia and I are passionate about as well, is we feel like those experiences are
Brad (43:15.832)
can be helpful to other people, which is why we want to be on a show like yours and support what you're doing. really are passionate. And I know Olivia has a big passion of helping women in business advocate for themselves and grow. So yeah, this is something that maybe, who knows, maybe we'll join up in the future as...
Michael (43:37.934)
coaches with us. We would love that. Olivia, give me the vision for the future from both the perspective, your perspective from thinking about the family, you in the business. And you've had this liquidity event. There's a family limited partnership. Thank you for sharing that. That's a level of complication. Now you and your sisters are partners.
Michael (44:06.466)
You know, for a long time, based on these things, what is your vision of the future look like, you know, in regards to both aspects?
Olivia (44:18.796)
That's a great question. think in terms of what I'll say about the acquisition, one of my mentors, she actually gave me this book and it's called The Endings That Set Us Free, think. I'll have to follow up on that. But that's really how I feel right now in a way. And it's such a win-win situation because I think when you think, you know, when you have a family business, sometimes selling it or giving up.
Olivia (44:47.448)
probably feels like failure, right? It feels like you failed. But there is an ending for everything, right? And this one for me and for my vision, and like I said, for one of the reasons why I was very honest with my dad and just said, hey, dad, I can't do what you did. And that was not easy. That was not, I knew it in my heart the whole time, but I really had to.
Olivia (45:15.606)
get the courage to say it out loud. And I knew that because I knew what it would mean for my family if we could sell the company. I knew how it could, you know, change not just my parents' life, but my siblings' life. And I knew that my role was to be a part of making that happen. And, you know, my dad sort of mentioned it. What is the vision for the future? Well, for Mountz,
Olivia (45:45.344)
Right now we had put an amount of years that we felt like, we'll stay, we'll make sure that this is a really successful acquisition. That's what we want for it. Right now, to be honest, like I said, it's a win-win. I'm really enjoying it myself. My dad's still my boss. Hasn't felt like much has changed. I thought maybe I would be ready to walk away, my heart is still in it. There are still certain things that I want to check off the list, if you will. So I would say,
Olivia (46:14.99)
you know, that is not 100 % known, but we'll continue carrying on and take that as a win-win. And even beyond that for our family, like what is my vision? I guess I'm maybe the ringleader of the girls at this point, but you know, for me, I think I would love to really focus myself.
Olivia (46:40.254)
on my passion of coaching and doing what was done for me by my two mentors. I could not have done this. when I, I'll never forget when I was living in London, I had walked out of a workout class on High Street Kensington. My mentor calls me and she's like, Olivia, you can do this. Cause I said to her, I don't know if I can take this director role. I've got no experience. I'm not like technical as my dad.
Olivia (47:07.028)
I have so much I need to learn. And she basically instilled in me a really strong confidence to go ahead and do it. And I would love to give that back and be able to contribute to others in a similar way that she did for me.
Michael (47:25.848)
Let me introduce you to, you can Google this when we get done, the Purposeful Planning Institute. Take a peek at it. That might be a spot for you. I've spent 15 years there, and I just brought my wife for the first time to the work that they do. Most of it is coaches coaching families that are going through all of this stuff. So there's all kinds of things there. There are some families now that have said, you know, we started a, you know, come on.
Michael (47:55.958)
family foundation or a... Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they want to hear this stuff because they want to get in front of it. What do we have to expect here? And then the other one is the family office exchange. I'm not sure if you're familiar with them at all, but family office exchange for families that actually go the single family office route. And how do we...
Michael (48:24.03)
run this business, this, you know, the pieces that we've just put together here. Basically you're in business with your sisters now.
Olivia (48:32.32)
Yes, exactly.
Brad (48:34.19)
And
Brad (48:34.37)
that's what, know, Olivia is really super strong strategically, operationally, organizationally, and with people. She's wonderful with people. Knowing how to find the right ones and knowing how to motivate them is one of her fortes. It's one of her geniuses. I'm much more on the product, how to match up the product to something and try to figure out how to do it from that side. So.
Brad (49:02.124)
These are things that in a business you've got to have skill sets for, right? Either inside the business or around your table. 100%. Yeah.
Michael (49:14.548)
Look, I know that you know, now we got to wrap these wrap things up. Just because I know you've got a time constraint. But I just want to say we may just bring you two back on again, just change the topic and do some other things. You've done a lot of work through the years on yourselves and and your abilities that it's just you can it shines right through fabulous, great work, lots to be proud of. Brad and Olivia Mountz.
Brad (49:39.234)
Thank you.
Olivia (49:39.617)
Thank
Olivia (49:39.975)
you.
Michael (49:43.82)
Mountz Incorporated, Snap-On. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your time and for sharing your stories with us. My name's Michael Palumbos you've been listening to the Family Biz Show. I'm with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. Have a great day, everybody, and we look forward to you listening in on the next episode. Take care, everybody.
Brad (50:04.578)
Thank you. Appreciate it.
