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or the second year, Crain’s Cleveland Business profiles nine of Northeast Ohio’s family owned businesses, from their starts generations ago to today. These companies address how they’ve navigated the difficult dynamics of working with family, and a difficult economy that has forced them to adjust.
ROUNDING OUT THE ROSTER Second generation ■ Mar-Bal Inc., Chagrin Falls PAGE 14
Third generation ■ House of LaRose, Brecksville. PAGE 14 ■ Leimkuehler Inc., Cleveland PAGE 15
■ PFI Displays Inc., Rittman PAGE 16
Fourth generation ■ Federal Metal Co., Oakwood Village PAGE 16 ■ Lucky Shoes, Fairlawn PAGE 16 ■ Speed Exterminating Co., Cleveland PAGE 17
International Transport Services Inc. Cleveland ◆ second generation By JAY MILLER jmiller@crain.com
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arry Yankow got into the air freight business because he badly wanted to be around an airport. So he went to work for a freight forwarder until he was ready to start his own business, now known as International Transport Services Inc., in 1986. “My vision was just to start a company, hire some employees” and stay in the shipping business, Mr. Yankow said. The company, now with 22 employees and running out of office space, last week moved around the corner to Cleveland from Middleburg Heights — still within shouting distance of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. International Transport doesn’t own trucks or ships or airplanes. Instead, it handles the movement
of the freight of its customers, anything over 250 pounds from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world. The company finds the right shipper and then prepares the bills of lading, export declarations, customs paperwork and sometimes more. His sons and successors are Bill and Matt Yankow. Air freight was what they always knew, too, a place at which they spent time as kids. Their mother, Anne, also works at International Transport, as vice president of finance. The boys say they knew their dad’s business was where they would end up, though Larry, 56, wasn’t so sure they would follow in his footsteps. Now, he thinks he has planned his exit strategy. “I never assumed they were going to be in the business,” Larry said recently. “I never assumed See TRANSPORT Page 17
RUGGERO FATICA
Larry Yankow (from left), with wife, Anne, and sons, Bill and Matt, in International Transport Services Inc.’s Middleburg Heights warehouse last month, before it moved to Cleveland last week.
Logan Clutch Corp. Westlake ◆ second generation By DAN SHINGLER dshingler@crain.com
B Siblings Andrew and Lisa Logan unexpectedly took over Logan Clutch Corp. after their father died in 1986. JESSE KRAMER
eing an entrepreneur is tough for people who have dreamed of it their entire lives. Imagine what it’s like for someone who has it thrust upon them. Andrew and Lisa Logan weren’t expecting to become business owners in 1986, when he was still in college and she, 10 years older, was working her way up the corporate ladder at machine tool giant Warner & Swasey. But an unexpected illness befell their father, Bill Logan, who died that year. Shortly thereafter, the oldest and youngest siblings joined their mother, Madelon, and decided to carry on the business, Logan Clutch Corp. of Sheffield Village. Bill Logan knew what he was
doing; he made custom clutches for machine tools that remain a mainstay of the company today. But the business was only 4 years old when he died, and his illness kept him from it for much of the last two years of his life. The family inherited a viable business, but one that badly needed attention. They looked for help, and found it from area business groups, including Cleveland’s Council of Smaller Enterprises, which provided them with mentoring. “COSE really hooked us up — we were the real widows and orphans,” recalls Lisa Logan, now the company’s vice president. The brother and sister took their father’s original concept, which was to offer clutches made to customer specifications, rather than offer only one standard
model, and expanded it. While the screw machines that make screws and bolts were the original use for the Logan clutch, today you’ll find them not only in a wider variety of machine tools, but also in tug boats, fire trucks, and oil and gas drilling operations. Along the way, the company has grown from two employees to a couple dozen and still is expanding. After coming through the recession without a money-losing year, Logan Clutch is expanding at its location in Westlake, where it is spending about $1.5 million on new manufacturing space and equipment this year, said company president Andrew Logan. Marketing is key, the brother and sister say, and it has been the major reason for the company’s growth. Five years ago, the company was adding about 75 customers a year, but it has found a way to top even those results more recently. “We’ve added 100 new customers or more in each of the last three See LOGAN Page 17