A FAMILY AFFAIR

The Stanfields and Diamonds continue the corporations started by their forefathers

The entrepreneurs of the year, with a special look at family business.

Jon Stanfield’s father asked him to think long and hard about his choice when he was deciding whether to join the family business — because once he became a part of the company, it would be hard to leave. At 24, the younger Stanfield didn’t always take every piece of advice his dad gave him seriously, but he got on board anyway. Today, he’s the fifth-generation Stanfield to run the undergarment giant, and says he’s learned more from his family than he ever would have working elsewhere.

“To work in a family business, to have your father as your boss and your mentor and your business partner, is a very unique experience that not many people get,” says Stanfield, whose family was recently presented with the Atlantic Family Business Award of Excellence as part of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year awards. “It’s obviously a great honour for the family and great recognition for the generations that have served before me.”

Charles Stanfield launched his textile business in 1856 in Prince Edward Island after coming to Canada and passed it on to his sons after moving it to Nova Scotia. They chose to focus on knitted merchandise, eventually turning Stanfield’s Ltd. into a leader in the undergarment apparel field with a track record of innovation that includes creating the “shrink-proof process.” Charles, says Stanfield, was an entrepreneur in the “purest” sense. “The rest of us carried on the tradition of the business decisions, in the light of an entrepreneurship spirit.”

The iconic Canadian family membership includes Robert Stanfield, who served as premier of Nova Scotia from 1956 to 1967, when he became leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party. He led the party in several memorable, but unsuccessful campaign battles with the Liberals under Pierre Trudeau, and was affectionately labelled “the best prime minister Canada never had.”

On the other side of Canada, Vancouver’s Diamond family won the Pacific Family Business Award of Excellence. The prize honoured both Gordon Diamond of West Coast Reduction Ltd. and his brother Charles, chairman of Diamond Investment Group Ltd.

“Statistics show that fewer than 10% of all family businesses make it to the second generation [and] even fewer are able to sustain an entrepreneurial mindset and the traditional values that brought the company to success,” Lui Petrollini, Pacific Entrepreneur of the Year program director, said in announcing the award. “That’s what’s most impressive about the Diamond family. They’re enjoying the support of a third generation while continuing Jack Diamond’s humanitarian legacy.”

Gordon and his wife Leslie have continued the charitable traditions of his late father, Jack, an immigrant who turned his stake in a small Vancouver butcher shop into Pacific Meat Co., the largest packing house in B.C., by finding new and innovative technology to increase productivity. Jack Diamond sold that company in 1963 and with his son Gordon formed West Coast Reduction, now the largest independent rendering company in Western Canada. “This was the first time that my brother and I shared the honour of receiving an award — that in itself made it extra special even though we run different businesses,” says Gordon Diamond.

The awards seek to recognize outstanding family businesses that successfully balance corporate and family issues while being able to grow a sustainable business and act in a socially responsible way.

“There’s often a misconception that it’s easy to just pass these businesses from generation to generation, [but] we find that the next generation, in taking on the business, is trying to make it better,” says Colleen McMorrow, EY’s national director of Entrepreneur of the Year. “They are often transformational, in terms of being able to do something to the business [and] the brand that takes it to another level.” FP

Gordon Diamond, West Coast Reduction