The next generation

摘要

Where is your business headed? And who's going to get you there? Fourth-generation members of the Cook and Treleven families discuss how they're leading their pest management businesses into the future - and what roles they're playing. On Brian Cook'sfirst day of graduate school, his professor told him that the odds of his future success were stacked against him. Citing national statistics, the professor pointed out that less than 3 percent of family businesses survive past the third generation. Brian wasn't phased. "I always knew I would have to work hard to prove myself in the family business and hearing that, I knew I'd just have to work harder," he said. Now as director of business development at Cook's Pest Control, Decatur, Ala., Brian represents the fourth generation leading his family's business, and the industry, into the future.