How to keep it in the family.

• Author: Gurley, Margot Lester
• Position: Winners of North Carolina Family Business of the Year Award

The winners of our first North Carolina Family Business of the Year Award find all success is relative.

Most family-business founders can't shake the image of their heirs as the 16-year-old kid who put the car in a tree," explains John Powell, head of the North Carolina Family Business Forum, based in Burlington. "So getting the entrepreneur in charge to let go of the reins -- to transfer operational control to the next generation -- is the most common stumbling block to keeping a family enterprise alive."

The numbers bear that out. More than 90% of North Carolina businesses are family-owned, yet few stay that way beyond the first generation. Big egos, sibling rivalry and Oedipal conflict frequently spell disaster. "Often the first generation doesn't have faith that the next generation can run the business as well," says Powell, whose family's Carolina Biological Supply Co. has seen its share of feuding.

Still, some do manage to survive into the second generation and a few even into the third. Three such businesses are the winners of the first North Carolina Family Business of the Year Award, presented by the forum and BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA.

Raleigh consulting engineers Booth & Associates won in the category for small companies (fewer than 100 employees). Gregory Poole Equipment Co. in Raleigh, winner for midsized (100-499 employees), is the Caterpillar dealer for Eastern North Carolina. Neil Realty Co., a diversified real-estate company and operator of nursing homes, won for large (more than 500 employees) companies.

Booth & Associates Inc.

All Dick Booth wanted was a transition plan to get the family business through his retirement. What he got was a total re-engineering of Booth & Associates, consulting engineers to small electric utilities and municipalities.

Booth, now 60, had taken over the business in 1976 from his father, Richard F. Booth, who had started the company in 1960 and wanted to ease into retirement. There wasn't much of a plan, Booth recalls, just a division of responsibilities by speciality. "Dad sat back and headed up the business, while Greg and I handled the engineering end."

Booth and his brother made all key decisions jointly, though they managed different parts of the company. "Greg focused on substations, and I focused on system planning and transmission lines."

Before joining the business in 1962, Dick Booth had earned a business degree from Carolina and an engineering degree from N.C. State. Greg Booth, now 47, started full time in 1969 after getting his engineering degree from State.

They continued to share power until their father died in 1981. Dick became president, and Greg, executive vice president. Despite the titles, they ran the business like a partnership "because we both have equal capabilities," Booth says.

"All of the things Dad did fell to me because I'm the numbers person," he adds. He and his brother soon realized what time-consuming tasks their father had

been doing during his half-days at the office. "Greg and I really didn't appreciate what he did until after he was gone," Booth recalls.

They also realized the brothers-in-arms management structure wouldn't last forever, so they began planning for not only the next stage, when Greg would run the company alone, but the stage...