Business owners always have goals. George Ryan has achieved his most important one.
“I always wanted to be in driving distance to my family,” he said. “I did that.”
Actually, he did much better.
During work hours the 74-year-old is within walking distance of his wife, Kathy,daughter Katelyn Barr, son-in-law Brad Barr and sometimes even 11-year-old granddaughter Lindsey, who has been known to answer the phone for the family business, Concord Tractor in Chichester.
“Being able to have my daughter be with her grandfather all day, every day, is just special,” said Lindsey’s mother.
But there’s a cost to it, or what many people would see as a cost: Ryan, who created and owned Ryan Ford Tractor in Tilton for many years, has been demoted. He is no longer in charge but answers to his daughter, the CEO of Concord Tractor. “I report to her. I’ll give advice, tell her what I think. But she decides.”
The generational handoff of a business is a tricky situation that forms the basis of many a TV show, but Concord Tractor is thriving as a dealership for South Korean company Kioti (pronounced “coyote”) and everybody is still talking to each other. How did they do something that trips up many family businesses? A combination of circ*mstance and personalities, it seems.
George Ryan, a native of Natick, Mass., started working as a technician for Ford after college, following in the footsteps of his father. He moved into the company’s tractor division and as he moved around the country and within the company at a time when blue Ford tractors were a farming and landscaping mainstay, he visited a lot of franchises. Eventually the possibility of starting a new franchise in Tilton arose and he jumped at the chance. “I used it as a way to get back to New England,” he said.
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Ryan Ford Tractor opened in 1984 and Katelyn was born the next year. An only child, she was a presence at the dealership almost from day one.
“I had been around the equipment my whole life,” she said. The unspoken assumption that she would move into the business was fine with her, which solved one common obstacle to handing off a business. “If (the next generation) doesn’t have interest, isn’t excited, it can’t happen,” said Barr.
But in 1991, Ford sold their tractor division to Fiat and things went downhill, Ryan said. He sold the business in 2000 to MB Tractor & Equipment and worked there in sales. Barr went to college but wasn’t enthused and, she said, drifted a bit: “I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up.”
Then she helped the family start a used-tractor business out of their home. It went OK but difficulty getting machines was a constant frustration and pushed Barr into a big decision of creating a new business.
“It was all her idea, to start this (the franchise),” Ryan said, gesturing at his daughter. They found a piece of property on Route 202, a well-traveled road without competition nearby, plus a manufacturer looking for new dealers, then got some loans from family members and other financing. Concord Tractor was born, with Katelyn Barr in charge and George Ryan happy as a senior employee.
This sidestepped the second big obstacle to generational handoff. It’s not enough for youngsters to want the business; oldsters must be ready to give it up.
“There is nobody who can ‘out-tractor’ this man,” Katelyn said, gesturing back at her father. “But he’s also of the mindset that we can work together … to put a little trust in your kid and let them go.”
This is not to say that father and daughter don’t ever “butt heads,” as she put it. A small business involves a million choices a day, from staffing to schedules to pricing to how many of which size tractors to keep on the lot. Disagreements are the norm with no obvious correct answer.
“He’s right, and I’m also right,” Barr said, semi-joking. But she’s boss, so in the end it’s her version of “right” that holds sway.
It’s also possible that starting anew made the transition easier. If Ryan Tractor was still a going concern in Tilton, it might have been more difficult for George Ryan to hand over connections with suppliers and customers that had been going on for three decades.
Kioti is a division of South Korean manufacturing giant Daedong, which has been pushing to increase its North America sales of all types of tractors, from the six-figure machines you see on hay fields to under-100 horsepower utility tractors used by what Ryan called “sundowner” homeowners, which start at around $19,000. These folks come home from work and jump on their tractor until the sun goes down for a bit of rural life, shifting dirt, dragging brush, digging trenches or smoothing a dirt driveway. Sundowners are the growth area in the industry and the fact that Concord Tractor is No. 2 in unit sales in North America for Kioti, with 10 full-time employees, indicates that their needs are being met.
As for George Ryan, he knows that when talking to people of his generation there’s often a certain reaction to his situation.
“There’s probably a little bit of jealousy. They don’t articulate that, but a lot of times a person in their 50s, 60s, 70s will be sitting over here and know them a long time. (I say) How are things with the family? ‘Oh great, my daughter’s coming in from California next week, she’ll be here for 10 days.’ ” he said. “I’ll say, that’s great.”
