The best-laid plans: bringing succession plans to life.

• Author: Coon, John
• Position: Business Planning

Tom Carlin knew one day he would take on a new role as CEO at Inovar. Wedding bells caused that day to arrive much sooner than he originally expected.

Blake Kirby, a majority owner along with Carlin, decided to step aside as CEO after 13 years when he got engaged. Kirby wanted to move to California with his new wife and leave the day-to-day operations in Carlin's hands.

The good news is Carlin was perfectly positioned to take over running Inovar. For four years, he had worked as president of the Logan-based electronic manufacturing services firm. Carlin began his transition to CEO a full 12 months before he officially took on that role last November.

It became the worst-kept secret at Inovar. But it also allowed the company to train Carlin's replacement at his former position and prepare other employees to step up into new executive team roles.

"We did a very good job of preparing people for their roles," Carlin says. "People were excited to get into it and we counted on that well."

Formulating a succession plan is a basic part of doing business. But those plans can take on new life once they are executed. While a succession plan starts out in a certain direction on paper, it does not always end up going that same direction once put into action.

Cultivating the Right Talent

Succession plans are impossible to execute properly without doing a significant amount of groundwork ahead of time. It starts with a company making sure it has recruited the right talent within the ranks.

"The way to build succession plans is to build the individual, and then the individuals build the business," says Joe Atkin, CEO of Goal Zero, a creator of portable solar power systems.

Atkin knows firsthand how this process works. He traveled a careful road to the top post of Goal Zero. Initially, Atkin worked as a senior manager at Sorensen Capital, a shareholder in Goal Zero. He came to the company on loan and worked in various executive roles.

When Atkin was named company president in October 2010, he possessed a deeper understanding of how everything worked at the Bluffdale-based company. His predecessor, Goal Zero founder Robert Workman, put Atkin's knowledge to the test right away by moving to Europe for three months and leaving the company completely in Atkin's hands.

The move worked out brilliantly. Atkin helped Goal Zero grow by leaps and bounds--going from generating less than $1 million in revenue before he took over as president to $60 million in projected revenue for 2013.

Atkin had the right background to inspire this sort of...