Alissa Leinonen is the award-winning Founder & CEO of Seattle’s largest and longest running woman-owned catering and boxed-lunch company, Gourmondo Co. What began as a small, four-table lunch spot in Pike Place Market over 20 years ago is now a leader in the Pacific Northwest catering industry. There is much about Alissa and her success that is remarkable, but perhaps most inspiring is her commitment to People First—to her family, her employees, and her community. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Alissa describes how that commitment to People First has guided her throughout her journey as an entrepreneur and through the challenges of the COVID period, when over 24-hours in the early days of the pandemic she saw 80 percent of her business disappear. Alissa’s remarkable pivot to serve her community and save her business is an inspiring Evergreen success story.

Navigating the wake of the COVID pandemic will continue to present challenges and uncertainty for Evergreen businesses. In this period, it can be helpful to look to leaders who have persevered through difficulty and maintained a focus on their purpose and their people. In this welcome presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Dave Whorton, Founder and CEO of Tugboat Institute, offers insight into George Washington’s exemplary life and career and shares inspiration from this early Evergreen leader.

Jeff Patterson, CEO of Gaggle, has unique insight into the experience of students’ online lives in today’s remote learning landscape. Gaggle serves school districts around the country through the development and management of a digital student safety net and trained safety experts that schools use to monitor activity on devices and apps, alerting schools to the possibility of students harming themselves or others. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Jeff encourages parents and employers of parents to be particularly attentive to the mental health and well-being of children in the academic year ahead. As students face the loss of school and all-important social connections, he offers valuable perspective to help families and employers navigate this period and understand what’s at stake in this unprecedented time.

How would you finance an acquisition? Deplete your cash flow? Take out a bank loan? Ignore the opportunity to avoid risk? In this 5-minute presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Ami Kassar, founder and CEO of MultiFunding LLC, and author of The Growth Dilemma, presents another—less well-known—option for funding growth.

With the privilege of owning and operating a multi-generational family business comes tremendous responsibility to educate children in the family about the business and wealth management. This panel discussion from the Tugboat Institute Summit 2018, moderated by Dave Whorton, highlights “what not to do” and draws on the expertise of leading family office and multi-generational business experts Spencer Burke, Executive Vice President, St. Louis Trust Company; Kim Sheehy, Vice President, Fidelity Family Office Services; and Loren Feldman, Senior Editor, Forbes.

In a Fireside Chat with Tugboat Institute Founder and CEO Dave Whorton, Robert Pasin, CEO of Radio Flyer, notes his immense gratitude for the opportunity to continue to build the business his grandfather Antonio founded in 1917, led by his values. The commitment to integrity in busienss and magnanimous approach to community that Antonio embodied have guided Robert through difficult periods in his and the company’s trajectory and continue to guide the Evergreen leader today.

Pamela Kan is unique—a female owner-operator in a traditional manufacturing business. Pamela leads Bishop-Wisecarver, the company her father founded in Pittsburg, California. In this episode, Pamela offers insight into the principles and experiences that shaped her leadership journey as CEO of an Evergreen® woman-owned manufacturing business and her commitment to introducing and nurturing other female leaders.

Michael Shearn is a value investor, author on the topic (The Investment Checklist), and student of Warren Buffett’s values and Berkshire Hathaway’s approach to company building. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Michael shares what he believes creates real value in companies and offers tactical takeaways for Evergreen leaders.

Launched by Tugboat Institute in 2019 as Tugboat Talks, this podcast was created by stories of Evergreen companies, offering inspiring insight into the principles that drive these private, purpose-driven businesses and their leaders--exemplars of a movement that we believe represents capitalism at its best. Many of the talks and interviews we share here have been curated from our weekly Evergreen Journal newsletter, through which we share articles and videos each week. Now, to align this podcast with that source and connected social media (Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) to ensure you can follow the voice of the Evergreen movement across multiple channels, we are rebranding this podcast as Evergreen Journal by Tugboat Institute. We look forward to continuing to share regular episodes. For further information about the Evergreen movement and our membership community, visit TugboatInstitute.com.

In this episode of The Evergreen Experience™ 2020, recorded on June 26, 2020, Dave is joined by John Grossman, President, Grossman Company Properties, and Robin Petravic, Owner/Managing Director, Heath Ceramics. John and Robin both lead businesses that were especially hard-hit early by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic—hotels and dinnerware/tile manufacturing, respectively. Having been forced to an almost-complete stop, both Evergreen® leaders are now emerging through uncertain and challenging conditions in their industries and share their experiences and key learnings.