UNI Family Business Center looks forward to 2024-2025 program season
The University of Northern Iowa Family Business Center (UNI FBC) looks forward to a new season of supporting Iowa businesses. A virtual breakfast series kicks off the year on August 29 with Gage Kent, chairman/CEO and third-generation leader of KENT Corporation in Muscatine.
The UNI FBC has a large network of resources to set families up on a trajectory for success. From its location in the middle of the Heartland, the team connects family leaders from all over the U.S.
In addition to the virtual breakfast series, the UNI FBC offers real-time educational and networking opportunities, direct consulting, blogs, podcasts and other resources. The past year featured several well-known Iowa family corporations such as Wells Blue Bunny, Jolly Time Popcorn and Blain’s Farm & Fleet, along with small and mid-sized families and service providers.
This past week finalized programming for the 2024-25 season, with a webinar about employee-sponsored ownership plans (ESOPs), in collaboration with the Iowa Center for Employee Ownership (IA-CEO) at UNI.
“While we help families to maintain ownership of their businesses, we prefer to see them succeed in the long term,” said Dan Beenken, director of the UNI FBC. “If an ESOP can be a part of the solution, we want to ensure that they survive in order to support their local economies and workforces. It’s exciting to be able to work with the IA-CEO group to offer this expanded programming to Iowa’s family firms.”
The UNI Family Business Center was born out of a program focused on valuation, succession and transition planning. While working with companies in this space, the team recognized that a majority were family-operated and set out to meet a need in Iowa. Learn more about the center and its programming at unifamilybusinesscenter.com.