Family to Family: The Laird Norton Tyee Family Business Survey 2007 was designed and produced by Laird Norton Tyee and co-conducted by the Austin Family Business Program at Oregon State and the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University. This project brought together top experts on the issues facing family businesses and some of the brightest minds in survey methodology. The resulting report delivers a comprehensive looks at the state of family-owned businesses in the United States.

Key Team Members

Rich Simmonds

| Laird Norton Tyee

Rich Simmonds is a managing principal of Laird Norton Tyee. He is a recognized expert in the field of family businesses, and he advises business owners on a wide range of topics including succession planning, governance and family meetings.

Before becoming part of Laird Norton Tyee, Simmonds was a cofounder of Tyee Asset Strategies in 1995, serving as the company’s chairman until it merged with Laird Norton Trust Company in 2004. Previously, he held the position of executive vice president of the asset management division of U.S. Bank for eight years. Prior to that role, he was president of Sheppart, Simmonds and VanHousen, an asset management company.

Simmonds earned a bachelor's degree in marketing and finance from Central Washington University. He is an advisory board member of Charles Schwab Institutional and serves on the boards of the University of Washington’s Autism Center, Junior Achievement, and Billings Middle School. As a member of the Rotary Club of Seattle, he participates on the youth and schools committee.
Back to top

Mark T. Green

| The Austin Family Business Program

Dr. Mark Green provided valuable insight and knowledge about family businesses during development of the Laird Norton Tyee Family Business Survey. He is the A.E. Coleman chair in Family Business, director of the Austin Family Business Program, and founding director of the Austin Entrepreneurship Program, at the College of Business at Oregon State University. He consults, speaks and leads academic courses, executive education programs, workshops and seminars for family businesses and the professionals that serve family enterprises. Dr. Green is also an associate of The Family Business Consulting Group, Inc.®. He is on the board of a number of family businesses and nonprofit organizations.

Prior to his consulting and academic careers, he worked in his own family business and learned firsthand the challenges and pitfalls of running a family business, including the critical importance of issues such as succession planning, strategic planning and healthy family business relations.

Dr. Green earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration from Cal Poly Pomona, an MBA from the Atkinson Graduate School of Management at Willamette University and a master's degree in political economy from the Claremont Graduate School. He completed his doctorate in economics and political science at Claremont as well.
Back to top

Paul Sommers

| The Albers School of Business and Economics

Economist Paul Sommers, Ph.d, helped craft the survey methodology. He played a key role in interpreting the survey data. Sommers has been a professor at the Institute of Public Service and the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University since 2004. In addition, he is director of the university’s Center on Metropolitan Development, conducting research on economic development and workforce topics. He is an expert on regional development, and regional economic and workforce forecasting.

Currently Dr. Sommers is leading a multi-organization project funded by the Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The project focuses on connecting small and minority businesses to leading-edge economic development strategies, such as cluster initiatives and technology-based development. Previously, he had a 25-year career at Battelle Memorial Institute and the University of Washington, where he conducted many research projects on national energy industry topics and on rural and urban regional development issues in the Northwest.

Dr. Sommers earned his doctorate in economics from Yale University. He is a member of the Washington State Governor's Council of Economic Advisors, and a past president of the Seattle Economists Club. He serves on the board of the Pacific Northwest Regional Economics.
Back to top

Steve Brilling

| The Albers School of Business and Economics

Steve Brilling served as key member of the research team for the Laird Norton Tyee Family Business Survey 2007. He is the executive director of Seattle University’s Entrepreneurship Center and has over 20 years of executive leadership experience in financial services. He has worked as a consultant for 14 years and has extensive experience in information technology, sales, marketing, human resources and training. In addition, he has been part of several start up ventures.

Brilling earned a master’s degree in business administration and bachelor’s degree in quantitative techniques. Along with his current Seattle U responsibilities, he is actively involved with several early stage companies, focusing on organizational transformation, market segmentation and marketing strategies.
Back to top

Hal Koenig

| Close to the Customer Project

Hal Koenig was responsible for execution of the Laird Norton Tyee Family Business Survey 2007. He also conducted the initial analysis of the data collected and determined which information was statistically accurate.

Dr. Koenig is co-director of the Close to the Customer Project, a market research program in the College of Business at Oregon State University. His professional focus is on research methods and customer satisfaction. He is published in several academic journals including the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Health Care Marketing and Hospital & Health Services Administration, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and Public Opinion Quarterly. He authored “Financial Aspects of Retail Management," a supplement to Retailing Management.

As an associate professor of marketing at Oregon State University, Dr. Koenig teaches fundamentals of marketing research and the marketing research practicum for the College of Business using “real world” projects. He earned his MBA and Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Back to top

Nicole Brown

| Close to the Customer Project

Nicole Brown brought an expertise in research methods to the Laird Norton Tyee Family Business Survey team. She worked to explore the goals of the survey and apply those goals to the survey methodology. Brown was responsible for oversight of the survey process. She is a faculty member in the College of Business at Oregon State University and acts as the associate director of the Close to the Customer Project (C2C). The C2C Project provides market research services to a variety of professional clients and is part of the Austin Entrepreneurship Program in the College of Business.

Brown focuses on qualitative research methods with an emphasis on consumer research, problems of small- to medium-sized business and issues pertaining to the development of markets for sustainably produced forest products. In addition, she has worked as a consultant to companies such as HP, Nissan, Yamaha and Harley-Davidson.

She earned her master of arts degree in applied anthropology at Oregon State University.
Back to top

Key Organizations

Laird Norton Tyee

Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Laird Norton Tyee is a leader among wealth management firms, overseeing more than $4 billion in assets for clients across the country. The company’s focus on family-owned businesses and Wealth Regeneration℠ make it uniquely qualified to present Family to Family: Laird Norton Tyee Family Business Survey 2007.

Laird Norton Tyee builds client relationships around four pillars of expertise — investment stewardship, generation-to-generation wealth transfer, business and family governance, and personal strategic planning. The company offers wealth and estate planning; trust and fiduciary services; wealth preservation; family business services; business transition planning; and client education programs.

For 40 years Laird Norton Tyee has focused on growing wealth and growing people – driven by the belief that wealth is not an end in itself, but a launching pad. Whether clients aim to reinvent themselves, provide for their children’s futures, or make a substantial contribution to the community, their missions and goals become the firm’s goals.

Laird Norton Tyee has served as trusted fiduciaries to five generations of families. Led by a team of recognized experts, the company has assembled a highly educated and experienced group of professional advisors certified in every field of trust and investment advisory service.

The complexities of wealth require Laird Norton Tyee advisors to be experts in serving the diverse needs of high-net-worth individuals. The company applies research-based, proprietary investment strategies to all investing. Laird Norton Tyee is committed to putting client interests first: no proprietary products are sold and no commissions are received from outside vendors.

Seattle-based Laird Norton Company, a seventh-generation family business, is the majority shareholder in Laird Norton Tyee and a co-sponsor of this report.
Visit website | Back to top

The Austin Family Business Program, Oregon State University

Established in 1985, the Austin Family Business Program is the oldest family business program in the world and considered a leader in its field. The program supports thousands of family-owned businesses through conferences, courses, workshops, seminars and research.

The Austin Family Business Program prepares business owners to balance the well-being of their business, their family and themselves as they address the challenges and opportunities which arise day-to-day and during succession. Through involvement in global and local research, as well as in workshops throughout the Northwest, the Austin Family Business Program acts as a resource to family businesses.

The Oregon State University (OSU) College of Business educates students in managing and developing sustainable enterprises. OSU is one of only two U.S. universities designated a land-grant, sea-grant, space-grant and sun-grant institution. Its more than 19,000 students come from all 50 states and more than 80 countries. OSU programs touch every county within Oregon, and its faculty teaches and conducts research on issues of national and global importance.
Visit website | Back to top

The Albers School of Business and Economics, Seattle University

The Albers School of Business and Economics teaches students from around the world to become effective leaders — both in their future professions and their communities. Home to approximately 1,575 undergraduate and graduate business students, the Albers School offers the largest nationally accredited evening program for working professionals in the Pacific Northwest.

Albers School of Business and Economics faculty are exceptional teachers committed to expanding the boundaries of their disciplines. Inspired by the Jesuit traditions of academic excellence, education for justice and service for others, Albers School is committed to providing an integrated business education for ethical and socially responsible leadership.

Seattle University was founded in 1891. The university has a diverse and culturally rich learning environment. It serves nearly 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students representing 71 nations, 42 states and territories, and a wide range of religious and ideological viewpoints. Seattle University is dedicated to developing students for leadership and service to their communities. In that endeavor, the university is joined each year by over 100 local and international businesses whose executives participate in campus activities.
Visit website | Back to top

The Close to the Customer Project

The Close to the Customer Project (C2C) is a program of the College of Business at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. C2C provides businesses and organizations with professional marketing research delivered by faculty/student teams. C2C helps ensure that the right questions are asked. The project brings faculty expertise and research experience to the business community. In working with the program, students get experiential learning opportunities that prepare them for marketing careers. C2C supports economic development by helping companies and organizations ask the right questions to assist in innovation and new business development.
Visit website | Back to top

Riley Research Associates

Riley Research Associates provides organizations with research to help them make informed decisions. The company has over two decades of marketing research experience across a broad range of industries. Riley Research Associates works closely with clients to understand goals, formulate clear, attainable research objectives and identify key audiences. The Riley team brings extensive experience in both quantitative and qualitative methods of information gathering and analysis, as well as knowledge and understanding of the most appropriate methods for collecting data.
Visit website | Back to top