BEMA - June 2018 - 59

FAMILY ROUNDTABLE

Sons, was there a moment when you saw your
father's leadership as an inspiration?
Rick Hoskins: One area that was significantly
impressive to me - and I would say it is a longterm goal of mine as well - is my dad's involvement with IBIE. Watching what those guys went
through and the time commitment and effort they
put in to making that show what it is today is inspirational and something that I'd like to do one
day. I think that was a pretty big moment for me
midway through my involvement with BEMA.

"Seeing what
my dad went
through - the
time commitment
from a leadership
standpoint - was
unbelievable."

AW: Along those lines ... when BEMA was managed by Smith Bucklin, Rich [Hoskins] was involved heavily, and so was my dad, so I heard
all the pluses and minuses of being managed by
Smith Bucklin until we moved into having our own
BEMA CEO. That was a significant change for the
association and put it on a different trajectory. And
I think the lesson there may be that you're not just
perpetuating the status quo necessarily; there are
ways to think bigger and look to do bigger things
that are better for the association long term that
are maybe hard in the short term.

Rick Hoskins, Colborne Foodbotics

MZ: When you look back at BEMA and think of
those who came before me, there was that legacy of Bob Zielsdorf. It wasn't because he was just
such a great guy; it was because of the leadership
he provided in making BEMA a better organization.
So, I drew from that going forward. And I knew I
had big shoes to fill because at one point in time,
there was somebody already in that organization
with the same last name, and I had to make sure I
didn't let that fall off the cliff once I took over.
BEMA is family-oriented, of course. Does
being involved in leadership as a family
make it mean a little more?
Rick Hoskins: I think they're kind of mutually
exclusive. The fact that we're a family-oriented
association doesn't necessarily translate to how
that would affect the leadership of BEMA. It's a
major attribute of BEMA and something that we
focus heavily on in terms of the offering in the
programs that we put on through BEMA, but it
doesn't automatically mean that it should translate to our leadership in terms of needing generational leadership.
MZ: I know BEMA's changed over the years. If
you look back at the time when my dad was chair-

man or even before, you had a lot more familyowned businesses that could make the decision
of, 'Yes, we're going to go, and we we're going
to bring our family.' It eventually started changing,
and we knew that with that change, you'd have
to adjust the way you looked at the leadership
because you might not have presidents, owners,
CEOs as your only choices to move up through
the chairs. You're going to have people in other
roles in companies as they come through because they're now part of a publicly traded company or a much larger organization. So that part
has changed.
What advice can you give other BEMA
members who are family businesses?
Rick Hoskins: I would give the same advice to
multi-generational members as I would to any
business. You're going to get out of it what you
put into it. Being a part of the leadership team -
through committee and board involvement and
the executive group - is a major benefit to your
business. And that's the way you're going to get
something out of membership is by being part of
the leadership and being present and accounted
for at the different functions and events.
BZ: I do believe there are unique challenges in
family businesses that public companies - even
private companies that don't have multiple family
members - don't have to face up to. In our case,
the BEMA structure helped overcome some of
those family challenges.
DL: I think you can boil it down to one important
thing: You're going to get out of it what you put into
it. And that, I believe, is so true.
BEMA

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BEMA - June 2018