On the trail of another man, the biographer must put up with finding himself at every turn: any biography uneasily shelters an autobiography within it.
—Paul Murray Kendall Tolstoy said all happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. This also can apply to family businesses, and if you’re thinking of working in the family business, think twice. Those of you who are may already know why.
This is the story of an SOB in a family-owned enterprise. Not my father. Me, the Son of the Boss. It’s also told by another son who worked closest to Roy Hampton Park—John B. Babcock, the son of the man who gave my father his first big break. With the exception of my mother, no one knew more about my father on a personal and social level and in a one-on-one working relationship than Johnnie Babcock and me. Both of us being sons of self-made men, we think it represents thousands of others living or working in the shadows of powerful fathers.
For Babcock, it was stressful to be second-in-command to a Forbes 400 workaholic for almost two decades and to meet the high expectations demanded. As he points out, his own father enjoyed significant fame—but Johnnie never worked for him. He worked for my father—and lived a personal version of “the strenuous life.”
For me, as the son of a self-made entrepreneur, I learned you can survive reasonably well if you maintain your independence. It’s another scenario when you become an SOB. I had a normal childhood, a good education, and a strong and respectable independent career going when I decided to accept my father’s invitation to work for him. That’s when the going really got tough.
In 1942, Johnnie’s father, H.E. Babcock, an entrepreneur who founded the largest farm cooperative in the nation, hired my father. My father, in turn, hired Johnnie to work for him for a few years in the late ’40s, and later to rejoin him in 1964. When I came to work for my father in 1971, I reported to Johnnie. Neither of us could have fully anticipated what “life with father” would be like. As his longest-lasting employee, Johnnie resigned in 1981 after nineteen years. I lasted seventeen, and after negotiating the purchase of the outdoor divisions from my father in 1988, (which I had been hired by him to run), I brought Johnnie back as a director of Park Outdoor.
The experience of being the offspring of self-made entrepreneurs may be familiar to sons and daughters of driven fathers across the nation, whether they work for them or not. What I saw of my father as I grew up and the insights I acquired while working for him, combined with Johnnie’s view from the top, make a story we think is worth telling. It may even provide comfort for other SOBs.