Brett Diamond recently stood under tons of steel his family’s company had installed at one of many keystone construction projects that can be seen across Collier County. 

Diamond, chief administrative officer for DeAngelis Diamond construction, grew up around the company his father David Diamond co-founded with John DeAngelis in 1996. 

Brett Diamond said his father had him in the office from as young as age 7. After graduating from Barron Collier High School in 2007 and earning a degree in business management from FGCU in 2012, he joined his father’s company and worked his way up to co-ownership status. 

From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 29, Diamond will be on hand to learn more about the sustainability of family-owned businesses at the third annual Resnick-Wynn Family Business Conference at FGCU’s Cohen Student Union. 

“Just hearing from others who are in that same position,” Diamond said of why he would be attending the conference for the first time. Diamond spoke off Immokalee Road, where his company is building an 80,000-square-foot orthopedic surgery center for NCH. 

“What is your goal as the next generation begins to take over?” Diamond said. “Or how do you go in and do that? What does that transition look like? How can you improve the business? What have past generations learned?” 

Those questions will have answers at the conference, which will feature Jonathan M. Tisch as the keynote speaker. He is the co-chairman of Loews Hotels & Co., and co-owner of the New York Giants NFL team. 

The guest speakers also are scheduled to include: 

• Elyse Lipman, the CEO of Lipman Family Farms 
• Dr. Dennis Jaffe, senior research fellow at BanyanGlobal Family Business Advisors 
• Tim Cartwright, partner and co-founder of Fifth Avenue Family Office 
• Russell Budd, founding partner of PBS Contractors and Wall Systems 
• John Macchia Sr., founder and chairman of the board of Advance Turning & Manufacturing Inc. 
• Joseph Suresky, president of R I Suresky & Sons, Inc. 

Billie and John Resnick, who co-own The Resnick Group, a financial services company, helped organize a family business conference at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. They wanted to create a similar type of environment at FGCU and enlisted Michael Wynn, chairman and president of Sunshine Ace Hardware, to start the conference three years ago. 

“Family businesses make up over 87% of businesses today in America,” Billie Resnick said. “And, so, when we look at the statistics for the succession of those and the successfulness of those as we transition to the next generation—only a third make it to the second generation, and less than 13% make it to that third generation. Our goal is to be able to support the community. Southwest Florida is a great area. We want to be able to have those family businesses, that are so important to our economic lifeblood of the community, to continue into the future—and we want to be part of that.” 

The quality of guest speakers has boosted the event’s profile, according to John Resnick. 

“John Tisch is the co-chair of Loews Corporation,” he said, “which is a family business, originally founded by his grandparents. It’s a great success story. He started with absolutely nothing. And today, Loews Corporation is a multi-generational, multi-billion-dollar conglomerate. They’re an incredible family business. And their success comes from each one of the family members realizing the other’s talents and respecting that. And then they work in harmony, and they successfully passed the business down to the third, going into the fourth generation. It’s a great success story.” 

Not every attendee can expect to become a billionaire, Resnick said. But even the billionaires had to start somewhere. 

“How can you relate to these multibillionaire family businesses?” Resnick said. “Well, the question is, you’re not relating to where they are now. But we’re going to talk about the story about how they started, just like all the other family businesses that will be attending. We’re going to follow the path over how they faced a critical crossroads, how they overcame them and built.” 

“Leading Family Businesses Through Critical Crossroads” is the theme of this year’s conference. 

“A great example of a critical crossroads is passing the business from one generation to the next,” Resnick said. “Oftentimes, the senior family members don’t recognize the talents or have the confidence in the next generation that they need to. The same way the next generation needs to respect the talents of the senior generation. Every generation and every individual contributes something unique. So, it’s never one person who knows it all. You have to embrace everybody and identify their talents.” 

Billie Resnick said she had not seen the HBO TV show “Succession,” which deals with the same themes of children taking over for their parents in a corporate environment. But she said she has heard of the show, and that real life is not as brutal as the show’s depiction. 

“We’ve seen some families just do it beautifully,” she said. “They just naturally want their children to take over. It’s very harmonious. That’s what we want to be able to provide and show examples of how every family is different. But we still have this continuity of themes that people go through. 

“How do you take those lessons from other families that have done it successfully and even ones that have had those challenges? What can we learn from that, and what can we do to help other families?” 

This story originally ran in The Naples Press on Feb. 23.