In this episode, we switch gears from interviewing another family business owner to exploring our own history and how we got to Kuder Consulting Group.
We delve into a unique and nostalgic understanding of small family businesses through the eyes of Connie Kuder, co-founder of Kuder Consulting Group. She has rich stories of growing up in Ohio around farm life and family businesses.
The conversation takes a trip back in time, discussing her family’s significant historical agricultural roots, including the evolution of her family’s farms, the sense of community, working collaboratively, and living in a more simple era.
She shares further aspects of bartering, life before modern technologies, and the challenges and dependencies that came with working in the family business.
You can watch the video version of this episode at https://youtu.be/emPLvmRKrzE
Key moments:
00:00 Introduction to the Episode
00:23 Connie’s Family Business History
00:34 The Role of Agriculture in Family History
02:04 The Importance of Community and Bartering
03:32 The Impact of Isolation and Dependence on Each Other
05:26 Birth and Early Life in Japan
06:09 Changes in Society and Technology Over Time
09:21 The Role of Negotiation in Family Business
10:42 Balancing Family Needs in Business
11:45 Conclusion and Look Ahead
Welcome to another episode
Speaker:of Exciting episode.
Speaker:Exciting episode of
Speaker:celebrating Small family es.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And in this episode, we're going
Speaker:to not be interviewing a guest.
Speaker:We're gonna be talking about ourselves
Speaker:in our own history a little bit,
Speaker:and in the politeness, we're going
Speaker:to start with the ladies first.
Speaker:So, hi.
Speaker:We can talk about Connie's history, right?
Speaker:So, Connie, yes.
Speaker:Tell me about your.
Speaker:History of your, you know, the
Speaker:origin story of your family business?
Speaker:Well, actually there's two family
Speaker:businesses, John, there's, and both
Speaker:of 'em are farms in central Ohio.
Speaker:Uh, one of 'em, uh, was created
Speaker:around the turn of the last century.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Which side of the business?
Speaker:Of the family?
Speaker:That would be my father's side.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:As far as I know, I don't
Speaker:know beyond that history.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I'm sure.
Speaker:Being America.
Speaker:They we're, we're all, uh, you
Speaker:know, have agriculture in our roots.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And then on my, on my mother's side,
Speaker:I am, I, I'm going to go ahead and
Speaker:say I'm the 10th generation Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:That has had an
Speaker:association with that Farm.
Speaker:Farm.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Farm.
Speaker:And, uh, um, it was given to my
Speaker:grandmother as a wedding present.
Speaker:And, uh, so she and my grandfather,
Speaker:um, moved there when they were
Speaker:first married in probably the 1920s.
Speaker:'cause my brother, my mother was
Speaker:born in 1933, so they, they would
Speaker:not have been married very long Okay.
Speaker:Before they had her.
Speaker:And, um, and it's grain farms, all
Speaker:of them in central Ohio usually
Speaker:are, um, corn, soybeans, and wheat.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And then they rotated those in
Speaker:and out and, you know, you, you
Speaker:always had, uh, cows and hogs and
Speaker:chickens and things like that.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I was gonna ask about Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:You always had, you had that as, as
Speaker:part of mo mostly for the family.
Speaker:It was
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:More for food and whatever right.
Speaker:For the family resources rather
Speaker:than commercial production?
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:That was other cousins.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Other cousins had dairy farms
Speaker:and, and things like that, so
Speaker:there was a lot of bartering.
Speaker:Oh, around, okay.
Speaker:That, if you had a, a big crop of,
Speaker:let's say something in the garden,
Speaker:your tomatoes went crazy that year and
Speaker:you could go , and barter it for, a
Speaker:couple gallons of milk, hopefully.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:So that would be one aspect of the extent
Speaker:I, I guess the family business economy
Speaker:or culture in the, in the community Sure.
Speaker:Would be the, that ability.
Speaker:To, to barter with family members
Speaker:and potentially a, a little
Speaker:bit higher level of trust.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Because,
Speaker:because they're codependent on one
Speaker:another through good and, and bad times.
Speaker:Well, and my parents didn't even
Speaker:leave the county until after
Speaker:they graduated from high school.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Uh, I mean, they were, that,
Speaker:you know, they didn't have the
Speaker:resources and, um, and, um.
Speaker:I'm not even sure of the
Speaker:curiosity at some point.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Because, you know, everybody
Speaker:was kind of landlocked Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:In that area.
Speaker:And so they, they didn't, there,
Speaker:there wasn't a lot of going out to
Speaker:the big cities, so to speak, you know?
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:And, and going out to restaurants.
Speaker:My, I can remember my mother saying,
Speaker:you know, she was in her teens
Speaker:before she ever saw a restaurant.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So that, that, you know,
Speaker:that kind of shows the.
Speaker:The isolation in some, some respects.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:But I also, with insider,
Speaker:probably a 10 mile radius.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:There was extended family all around.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:So you always had like, uh, I
Speaker:can remember one time, uh, uh, my
Speaker:great-grandfather flipped, uh, a tractor.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:And somebody figured out,
Speaker:they drove by, figured out.
Speaker:Got everybody in there.
Speaker:They flipped the tractor back over,
Speaker:got him to the hospital, what he
Speaker:needed to do, and he was back on
Speaker:the tractor like a week later.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:and that somebody was likely a relative?
Speaker:It was a relative, it was
Speaker:actually one of his cousins.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Who, you know, because there
Speaker:again, everybody was driving
Speaker:between the farms to check on them.
Speaker:And, uh, because everybody kind
Speaker:of had a hundred acre lots mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Or plots, so to speak.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:And, um, my great aunt and uncle
Speaker:lived right across the street.
Speaker:You could see, you know,
Speaker:what, half a mile at that.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:You've been up there.
Speaker:Um, so, but they kinda
Speaker:looked after each other.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:There was a, there was a more
Speaker:sense of community I think.
Speaker:Than anything else.
Speaker:And, and I, I'm, I'll say probably,
Speaker:um, there wasn't, of course,
Speaker:they didn't have the level of
Speaker:medical care that we have today.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:The hospital was, I think you've
Speaker:said that the hospital was very
Speaker:small and very, very mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Um, limited resources in itself.
Speaker:So people had to look out for
Speaker:one another in that sense.
Speaker:Well, and I was the first on both
Speaker:sides, my, both sides of my, my parents.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:That was born in a hospital.
Speaker:Wow, congratulations.
Speaker:The first, the first time, and I was
Speaker:the first one that was born outta the
Speaker:United States in coup, probably at
Speaker:least a hundred and 150 200 years.
Speaker:Okay, so explain that for our
Speaker:listeners.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I was born in Japan.
Speaker:My father was military, and um, he left
Speaker:the family farm for the first time ever.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:And became a, went into the Navy as a,
Speaker:and married my mother on the, kind of the
Speaker:way outta town before he got shipped out.
Speaker:And, um, so he went on and had
Speaker:never been on an airplane before.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Had never been, uh, on a bus before.
Speaker:Had never been on a ship before.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So he, and, and went to California
Speaker:for, for his, his basic training.
Speaker:So what a eye-opening experience for him.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and then what to do and
Speaker:then to go to a foreign country.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so in your lifetime Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Um, you know, thinking about the, um,
Speaker:just how society has changed and how, um.
Speaker:And you, the modern, the technology.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Technology has, you
Speaker:know, modernized things.
Speaker:I mean, I, I know you've talked about
Speaker:your, your very early days there was
Speaker:no, there was not indoor plumbing
Speaker:in either one of the farmhouses.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Your grandparents' houses.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And, and you know, that,
Speaker:that was later added.
Speaker:And, and you know, of course now
Speaker:we've got, right.
Speaker:And the farmhouse that we bought
Speaker:that, that my parents, we right
Speaker:after, uh, my brother was born.
Speaker:No, we, we, I, I can remember sitting
Speaker:in a tub and on the back porch taking
Speaker:a bath, and that was part of the
Speaker:rural, the more, you know, people
Speaker:in, in, for example, in Dayton,
Speaker:probably did have indoor plumbing.
Speaker:Oh
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:Everybody did.
Speaker:And in, in town.
Speaker:In the town, yeah.
Speaker:They had it on both towns, but
Speaker:out in the rural country, no, you
Speaker:didn't have the infrastructure.
Speaker:Uhuh, Uhuh.
Speaker:It was all well water.
Speaker:You know, you had subject tanks and, uh,
Speaker:and you Oh, and there was no trash pickup.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:I can remember my grandmother
Speaker:burning everything.
Speaker:Yes, yes.
Speaker:Including 10 cans.
Speaker:They have known people that still do that.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:But yeah, so it was, it was kind of
Speaker:that, and, and on both sides it was, it
Speaker:was very, um, very hands-on huge gardens
Speaker:and they grew everything thinking about
Speaker:the, you know, the family business.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Then versus family businesses today
Speaker:seems like one of the things to.
Speaker:To really, to kind of celebrate is, is
Speaker:that that sense of community that, um,
Speaker:codependent, I don't like the word
Speaker:codependent.
Speaker:Dependency.
Speaker:Dependency, yeah.
Speaker:It really isn't the,
Speaker:depending on one another and the,
Speaker:and the support, the community
Speaker:support within the family that.
Speaker:Um, you know, of sharing
Speaker:of resources and, um, yeah.
Speaker:And knowledge and Right.
Speaker:And, you know, you, you know,
Speaker:you were all, you were all very
Speaker:much connected, whereas we Yes.
Speaker:You know, we've become such a mobile
Speaker:society today that people in a,
Speaker:in a extended family, instead of
Speaker:living within a five mile radius,
Speaker:they may be scattered across the
Speaker:entire country.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:And I, and I can't even remember
Speaker:speaking of that, even, um,
Speaker:the community phone lines.
Speaker:Oh, the party lines.
Speaker:The party lines, yes.
Speaker:And everybody had their own ring.
Speaker:I remember.
Speaker:Party lines and, and
Speaker:they had their own ring.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:But that didn't make, make any
Speaker:difference because I could remember
Speaker:my grandmother slipping in that chair.
Speaker:She knew how to put her hand
Speaker:over that, that, uh, microphone.
Speaker:Microphone.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:And listen in.
Speaker:Listen in.
Speaker:And she could remember.
Speaker:And she knew who it was, you know,
Speaker:and they're, again, small community.
Speaker:Um, like going to church in
Speaker:the, in the next little town.
Speaker:And if you weren't there on Sunday, uh,
Speaker:there was a call that was going out.
Speaker:It was a phone tree.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:You were, you know, are you okay?
Speaker:What's going on?
Speaker:So,
Speaker:you know, it was.
Speaker:And again, very community oriented.
Speaker:We'll get into the family business
Speaker:stuff, but it was, it was both checking
Speaker:on making, it was like a safety check.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:You know, if you weren't in church
Speaker:there, there might be something wrong.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:You might be hurt, but there was also a
Speaker:little bit of reinforcement of Oh yeah.
Speaker:You, you needed to be there.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And, and, uh, we're, we're
Speaker:letting you know, we know you
Speaker:weren't.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You know, right.
Speaker:Kind of thing.
Speaker:Well, and I think with the
Speaker:family business, getting back
Speaker:to that point, negotiations,
Speaker:it was a constant negotiation.
Speaker:Not only with, um, you know, the.
Speaker:The people that you were doing
Speaker:business with outside, you know,
Speaker:selling your grain too and things like
Speaker:that, trying to get the best prices.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:You were also negotiating
Speaker:with other farmers.
Speaker:I need you to have to have this part.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:You know, I need your
Speaker:combine on this date.
Speaker:Can you bring it over
Speaker:and we can work together?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Who?
Speaker:Everybody pulled resource.
Speaker:Yeah, everybody pulled it because
Speaker:you couldn't afford your own
Speaker:equipment, especially with.
Speaker:You know, you're talking every, everybody
Speaker:couldn't afford, uh, their own, combine.
Speaker:Combine for, for
Speaker:a hundred acres.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:When one combine is capable
Speaker:of doing a thousand acres
Speaker:multiple.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Or more.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So what you did, it wasn't a
Speaker:rental type of thing, but it was
Speaker:more of a barter and or more of a.
Speaker:An awareness that we could help each
Speaker:other.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Or did they have shared ownership?
Speaker:Might, might.
Speaker:Several members of the
Speaker:family, they might have
Speaker:co-own What piece of equipment?
Speaker:Well, they did later on in my world.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:I, I knew about that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:But, um, but in the, in, um, in every,
Speaker:it was just a, a cooperative situation.
Speaker:And of course with my grandfather working.
Speaker:You know, for my grandmother to
Speaker:a point, he had to be quite aware
Speaker:because he also had his family up
Speaker:the road that he was also helping.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:You know, farm.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:So, so that was a whole nother
Speaker:thing that, that was going on.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:That he had to, uh, he had to balance.
Speaker:Her side and her needs in that farm and
Speaker:his family, his parents were getting older
Speaker:and balancing that and, and working with
Speaker:that too, and working with his siblings.
Speaker:Something
Speaker:probably a lot of people,
Speaker:family businesses, members,
Speaker:owners could relate to today.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Because, you know, if you're in a family
Speaker:business that's, well, you've, you've
Speaker:lived that being my wife and being Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:A daughter-in-law in our business.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:In our family business and our family.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:You know, they.
Speaker:Your family had needs, but you
Speaker:know, you lived with my family, so.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:There's
Speaker:always that dynamic.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:You always have to, it's a
Speaker:balancing act constantly.
Speaker:So I hope that this has
Speaker:been an interesting insight.
Speaker:I think we're, we could go on and on,
Speaker:but, oh yeah, there's
Speaker:lots, we'll return to this for many
Speaker:times, so, um, we look forward to.
Speaker:Sharing about my family business
Speaker:in another episode and then,
Speaker:uh, some of the, the challenges
Speaker:that we've seen in over time.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:So thank you very much for listening,
Speaker:and we will see you in another episode.
Speaker:Thanks.
