DASCO vice presidents Rachel and Jason Seeley are earning the right to take over the business. According to their mother, Linda, they are the two hardest-working people in the business.

When don seeley started planning for retirement, he had three options: continue to run his company, DASCO Home Medical Equipment Company; sell out to a competitor; or turn the reins over to his children—Jason and Rachel. Of all his options, the latter seemed the most remote. Though both Seeley children worked for the company, neither showed any interest in taking over—until one day they both told their father they wanted to buy the company.

“It was surprising because it was never discussed,” says Don Seeley, who is president of the suburban Columbus, Ohio, company. “As the kids were growing up and even in college, they never expressed an interest in doing it. It was our plan to sell to another company. It really was not by design; it was quite by accident.”

This change in plans set in motion a transition process that will allow both Seeley children to take over the business while maintaining the family’s strong filial bonds. The plan, which took 2 years to develop, came out of Don Seeley’s prior experience in a family business. He grew up and spent his early career with Seeley Medical in Cleveland, leaving the business in 1987 when he purchased DASCO from Rite Aid.

“I saw the benefits and some of the pitfalls that can occur in a family business. I became a bit of a student of the family-owned closely held corporation,” he says. “I read absolutely everything I could about how to run a successful family-owned business. I attended every meeting, class, seminar, you name it.”

Best Intentions are Not Enough
As a student of the family business, Don knew that the company needed a plan for the transition. “If you don’t have a plan, you run the risk of jeopardizing your family relationship,” he says.

Jason Seeley has seen firsthand how easily this can happen. “I have some college friends who are involved with their family’s business and ... it doesn’t seem to be running so smoothly,” he says. “The recurring theme is that people aren’t communicating with each other.”

On the other hand, for the Seeleys, which includes Don’s wife and DASCO executive vice president Linda Seeley, communication has been among the key elements in the transition process. As Don stresses, full disclosure of issues, needs, and desires by all sides is essential. Compromise has been part of the process, but Rachel Seeley says that overall the plan has been positive for everybody.

“It is phenomenal how much of a win-win situation it is for the four of us and the company,” she says. “Everybody benefits from the deal my dad and us have developed. Everybody is a winner.”

In addition to open communication, one of the most important elements in the transition process has been the development of a family creed, which has kept all the parties on the same page during their regular family meetings.

“We hired a consulting company that specializes in working with family businesses to develop a family ‘constitution’ of philosophical principles that shall not be violated,” Don says. “So as we go forward through the process, every time we hit a stumbling block, we can fall back on our constitution.”

Though the mechanics of the transition are not part of what the elder Seeley calls a “canned program,” the principles underlying the transition—including the family constitution, open communication, and the establishment of a board of directors—are tools that any company involved in a transition process can use. (See sidebar below.)

Though the principles have assisted in the transition process, Don and Linda Seeley add that there was one other key factor that has been crucial in the transition process—Jason and Rachel are good at their jobs. “The gift that came to Don and me is that they became the two hardest-working people in the business,” she says. “They actually earned the respect from the employees because all the employees saw that they weren’t just the children living off the owners. They were future owners themselves.”

It is the competence and passion both the Seeley children bring with them that are aiding in the successful transition process.

Cultivating Business Passion
Though both Jason and Rachel worked at DASCO when they were kids, filing and helping out, and later came back part-time during college, it was not until both of them were out of school that they seriously considered working for the company.

Jason, who is now a vice president of the company and heads the sales team, joined DASCO as a new hire, learning everything about the business. He admits that in the beginning he was not a natural salesman, spending the first 6 months “floundering.” It was at the end of this dry spell that Jason’s passion for sales and the home health care industry was sparked.

“One day the fax rang and over came a prescription for oxygen, and it was like, ‘Wow, someone was listening to me’ and they actually think enough of us, and me, to send a patient over to our company,” he says. “[At that moment] it just occurred to me that if you ask for something and have the ability to back up your promises, you’ll get it. It just excited me, and it lit the fire.”

This growing passion has paid off for the company. Since Jason took over the sales side of the business, he has increased the sales force from just himself to a team of eight. Sales grew by 32% in 2002.

For Rachel, her road to DASCO was a matter of family. Graduating from college with a degree in philosophy and with her original plan to be a lawyer derailed, Rachel moved to New Hampshire to work for a home health care company there. It was while she was there, working in the customer service department, that she discovered that she loved talking to patients and helping sick people.

“I was having so much fun, and all of a sudden I looked at it as more than just a job, and I wanted it to be a career,” she says. “And I thought, ‘Why am I making a career at a company my parents don’t own when my parents have a company in Ohio that I’m more than welcome to join?’”

Today, Rachel, who, like her brother, is a vice president, heads up the customer service side of the business. It is a big job as DASCO has a strong customer service commitment and each of its seven locations is an autonomous unit with its own delivery technicians, customer service personnel, and billing staff emphasizing the human touch to its customer base of 14,000, primarily respiratory, patients.

“They can call us 24/7, and they do, and we are there,” Rachel says. “Even if they are lonely people who just need to talk, we are there.”

This emphasis on customer service is one of the things that makes the company stand out from its competitors, Jason says. “I used to think it was because our sales team was so good,” he says. “The reason we are good is we make life easier for our referral sources.”

On the Grow
The sale of the company to the Seeley children is only one of the changes being carried out by the company. It also is in the process of building a new headquarters.

Though the company’s current Lewis Center, Ohio, headquarters was built just 4 years ago, it is “busting at the seams,” Jason says. To solve the problem, the family decided to build a new 16,000-square-foot headquarters in nearby Westerville, home of the Seeley family and many of the employees.

The new facility, which will include a small showroom, fitting rooms, a warehouse, and administrative offices, will be finished within the year and will have room for between 75 and 100 employees. If the company outgrows this site, the three acres of property will allow for an easy expansion.

Passing on success
The new facility is the first step in the next chapter of DASCO’s business. Don expects to complete the transition of DASCO to his children in less than 5 years. Once the reins are handed over, Don and Linda will remain on the board of directors and as resources for Jason and Rachel. “I think there is still some value that we bring to the business,” Linda says. “I suppose in 5 or 6 years we will be phased out as they hire their own peers.”

And what makes DASCO a value to its customers is what has made the succession plan go smoothly—at root, the company is a family. “I spend a lot of time out on the road with my sales representatives and my sister spends a lot of time on the road, and I think people see that means a lot to us,” Jason says. “We are not some huge national company trying to gobble up market share. This is our passion. It is what we were meant to do. And people pick up on that and like to support it.”

And this may not be the last time the Seeleys will need to implement a succession plan. According to Rachel, Jason’s 6-year-old daughter, Georgi, already makes sales calls with her dad.

C.A. Wolski is associate editor of Dealer/ Provider.