The following is an excerpt on an article about the WSU’s Kansas Family Business Forum that appeared in the the August 31, 2014 issue of The Wichita Eagle.
Early in the establishment of the Kansas Family Business Forum, Don Hackett quipped in a planning meeting that he thought it would outlive its usefulness in a few years.
“I said I view this as a five-year program,” he said. “I think we will have gone through all the major prospects in five years.”
This year marks the 20th year for the organization that Hackett, Wichita State University professor and former director of the school’s Center for Entrepreneurship, founded at the recommendation of a business colleague.
From those early days when Hackett struggled to recruit even one family member, the organization has grown to and maintained a membership of nearly 40 family-owned companies employing dozens to hundreds of people in the Wichita area and across much of Kansas.