Family Office Panel Discussion - Kent Swig on Family Transition

Panel Moderator: bringing these themes of family education and structure and guidelines into the topic, how do you use those tools to promote, and get to a place where Doug is talking about? Kent Swig: Well, first of all, I happen to agree with your initial premise that it is a very cohesive and a very good way to bind family members, ultimately, together. It certainly happened in our family. But, it also creates succession issues, transition issues, and what not. In our particular case we had a patriarch who ran it. We had a foundation that he created and over the years it filled with a lot of money, and he gave money and became much more of a philanthropist. He dedicated to certain social justice, education, etc., and there was a very strong point of view, and then when he passed away it was taken over by the second generation, which is my father's generation. Then, when my father passed away, my uncles were still alive, and then what do you do. All of a sudden there were four, and now two, unfortunately, in my immediate family, but there were three at the time, when my father died, and now we are sitting in a foundation that ran with philanthropic ideas and big points of view, cohesiveness, and organization among siblings, and now there are three other people here with no succession plan, no idea of how to do this, and that is where the comment is, is succession an event, or a process. In my family's case, it was an event. It was when death occurred, succession occurred. That is not what all of us here are about. The idea is, we do know there are going to be events like death. It is just a fact. The question is, do we let those determine how it works, or do we allow process, anticipate that, and have a responsive way of doing it, and not a reactive way of doing it. So, philanthropy, certainly charity, is one place that usually has a very common bond, because: 1) the dollars that are being given away are not going to family members, okay, 2) there is usually some kind of benefit, binding interest, on behalf of the family, because there has been some work done before to get more of the philanthropic point of view, or theological point of view behind it, so there are common elements there, and it can be a somewhat easier transition and platform to create guidelines and succession. It can be used, very much as a tool, when business succession, ideas, and guidelines need to be taken. So it, I think, can serve multiple purposes. For one, it is good to do good, right? It is nice to give out dollars and it is nice to be impactful, positively, in the world. With that comes responsibility, so you just don't just 'spray and pray'. That can be a very, very good work tool and a good binding force, and set an example of how, when you get into the transition and succession issues in businesses, it can be used as a great platform. So it is very positive in that respect.