Positive Enterprise Value

Today, my guest is Chet Jordan. Chet is one of the co-founders and co-owners of Digital Architecture, a business that he and his partner Ken Blais began. I think it's accurate to say they began it in Maine before they moved it to Florida. Their mission was to digitize and make it easy to use college and university course catalogs. They've expanded into way more than that, but that was the initial opportunity for them. And they began to digitize course catalogs so the students and professors in the universities and colleges they work with would be able to access the course catalogs quickly - see what was available, and what wasn't. If you've been a student in higher education you know that getting a course into your curriculum related to your major is often a challenging undertaking, and they digitized that and made it infinitely easier. I hope you enjoy.

Last month we held our first Bigelow Connectors event live at The Music Hall in downtown Portsmouth, NH. We gathered 80 of the best expert advisors to Entrepreneur Owner-Managers to focus on unlocking our collaborative energy, build relationships, engage in scholarly discussion, and hear from our keynote speaker, Greg McKeown, the New York Times Best Selling Author of Essentialism (2018) and Effortless (2021).

During our evening together I had the fun of interviewing Greg after his incredible keynote. During this brief half hour interview Greg shares deeper insights into his concepts of Essentialism and Effortless, some personal stories and life lessons, and what his focus is for the future. Sprinkled throughout you will also hear some very poignant questions from the other expert advisor attendees as well.

On this latest episode of the Positive Enterprise Value podcast our guest is Ken Johnson from MAS Medical Staffing. Ken, and his partner Jay Hamel, owned and ran MAS Medical for the last 20 years, building it into a very well-known and respected medical staffing business, serving the Northeast and the middle Atlantic states. Jay and Ken built the business basically from scratch.

Twenty years later or so, they engaged Bigelow and we helped them with architecting, the recapitalization of MAS Medical by Periscope Equity. And Jay Hamel was able to transition quickly out of the business while Ken stayed on as a principal stockholder. Ken relates to us very candidly and very humorously, a lot of the opening chapters of MAS Medical, some of the challenges that they had with the market, their products, and their services, along with some of the ways they stubbed their toes along the way.

On the latest episode of the Positive Enterprise Podcast my guest is Adeline Druart. Adeline is the president and CEO of Vermont Creamery, which is a part of the Land O'Lakes group of companies. Adeline has a fascinating story! After graduating from university in France, she came to Vermont Creamery as an intern, met the love of her life—both in her personal life and, actually I would say, in her professional life as well—and over time went from an employee at Vermont Creamery in the plant, to head of Operations, and ultimately President and Chief Executive Officer. What a story!

Do Entrepreneur Owner-Managers fundamentally operate at the level of data and analysis, or do EOMs fundamentally operate at the level of feelings and emotions? That’s the question that Jim Collins famously posed to Brené Brown and I loved it so much I posed it to Lisa Allen, the Principal Stockholder and Chair of the Board of Directors of the third generation family business Ziegenfelder Corporation. Ziegenfelder, headquartered in the hills of Wheeling, West Virginia, is one of the leading makers of frozen ice pops (what most of us think of as popsicle treats). What could inspire a more positive emotion than a popsicle treat in the heat of the July summer? (Hell, if more popsicles were available to more high performing entrepreneurs, we’d probably save a lot of money on therapy, who knows?)

Growing up with her family in Bolivia, do you think Jan Herschkowitz ever dreamed she’d become a successful entrepreneur business owner in America? I don’t. Having already gotten her professional start, Jan got the call from her Dad that he needed temporary help in the business that he acquired called PRL. She left a promising career with an electronics manufacturer in Chicago and traveled home for a short-term assignment to help her Dad. Tragically, his sudden death soon after her arrival, set the stage for Jan investing 32+ years leading the business from a small non destructive testing business into a high-tech, vertically integrated defense contractor making mission-critical nuclear components for the Navy. Jan generously shares candid comments with us on what it was like to lead the most successful company in a male-dominated industry, how she kept her perspective between professional and personal roles, and how she’s coping with being a passive investor in a business she ran for multiple decades.

In this hour-long podcast, Cary and I talk about family businesses and the different roles that you play in them, the challenge of following big footsteps, the crisis that turned into a positive transformation, keeping his feet on the ground all the way. Lots of insightful learnings and unlearnings from this unpretentious entrepreneur.

In this candid, fast-paced, fun and funny interview, Ford Reiche and I visit how things have gone in his latest chapter. Ford divested Safe Handling, Inc. 10+ years ago, and exited the day to day management of it immediately.

Today’s Quarantine Learnings podcast is with Maxx Bricklin, Principal at BOLD Capital Partners based in Los Angeles, California.  BOLD Capital Partners manages a family of funds targeting investments in early stage and growth technology companies.  They have a particular interest in entrepreneurial leaders who leverage exponential technologies to transform the world and create innovative solutions to humanity’s grand challenges.  Listen here as Maxx describes some of his learnings, both personal and professional, during the quarantine.

Today’s Quarantine Learnings podcast is with Cam Brensinger, Founder of NEMO Equipment based in Dover, New Hampshire. NEMO is an award-wining designer of innovative outdoor gear, including tents, sleeping bags, camp showers, and shelters. NEMO is founded on a commitment to adventure – to the fearless pursuit of uncharted paths, in everything from the equipment they build to the way they run the business. Listen here as Cam describes some of his learnings, both personal and professional, during the quarantine.