The Next Generation of Naylor Ownership

A Family Business, Succession, and the Future

The Next Generation of Naylor Ownership

Family businesses are the growth engines of our economy, and during the recovery from the 2008-9 recession, 90% of the job growth came from this type of company. As the owner of a family business, my long-term plans extend anywhere from five to 20 years, and I am always thinking about the future leaders of the business. Large public companies, on the other hand, plan for one or two years at most, and they manage earnings to be reported on a quarterly basis, maximizing today instead of investing in tomorrow.

My entire career has been concentrated around family businesses. Before I bought Naylor, I worked for two family companies: one was a large public company, Atco Industries, and the other was a private one, Black & McDonald. During my tenure, the ownership of both businesses was either transitioned to the next generation or the owners were in the process of doing so. I was fortunate to be around for these conversions, as I learned some valuable lessons about succession planning.

There is an adage in our society saying that in a family business, the first generation of owners builds the business, the second generation lives off of it, and the third bankrupts it. It was my intention to build the business and then create a desire in my children to run it successfully or else I would sell it to a buyer who would continue to have the company prosper.

Luckily for me, two of my children became involved with the business at very early ages, and will take over at Naylor as I reduce my active participation. When Lauren and Greg were growing up, they took advantage of many chances to work at Naylor. Greg technically started when he was just 10 years old, cutting grass at the offices on weekends. He later took on more involved roles, working in the electrical project group

Greg Hitchman at his summer job when he was 15 working in the Oakville office, 1999.

at age 14 and then offsite at 15 with the communications group, doing cabling work for schools in Simcoe County. Lauren also started around that age, beginning with various positions in the accounting areas including one summer as a dispatcher. By their late teens, both children showed a great deal of interest in both the family business and commerce in general.

Around the time they were finishing their university degrees, Lauren and Greg independently determined that they eventually wanted to take the reins at Naylor, although they were still too young to know if this would be in a professional management position or an active operational role. Although it seemed a little early to begin the preliminary stages of the transition process, and although I was only in my early fifties and still had more plans for my own career, we hired an outside consultant to help us manage the process. After all, I knew that beginning the transition early was a huge factor in the successful changeovers for the Southern (of Atco Industries) and McDonald families.

Lauren got her degree in commerce, and with the encouragement of our consultant, she first went out to gain work experience at other companies after graduation. She obtained a job as a financial analyst with Manulife Financial, and then worked in sales at Xerox. After a few years with each company, she came to Naylor, first taking the position of new maintenance sales representative, and then moving on to a management role. She went back to school at the University of Toronto for her MBA, and is now responsible for the back office functions of the company, including our shared services group and accounting. Her operating role is managing the service side of our business.

When Greg graduated from university with a degree in economics and political science, he began his HVAC apprenticeship, completed his basic at trade school, and then decided to gain some outside business experience. He started out working in media, and by the time he was 22 years old, he was running a call center in Bangalore, India that had about 100 employees. He then rejoined Naylor around the same time as Lauren, initially working as a service operations manager at our office in Richmond Hill. He later changed to the projects side of the business back in Oakville, and is now in charge of this group. Greg is spearheading our new operations in the United States.

Like Lauren, Greg completed his MBA parttime, and graduated in the spring of 2014.