Congratulations to the Class of 2015!

These organizations best demonstrate a strong commitment to both business and family and are engaged in innovative practices and strategies designed to enhance the family business dynamic. The following individuals are the winners for the inaugural Smart Business Family Business Conference presented by MassMutual Financial Group.
 
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Babette Pinsky
Chief Creative Officer
Babette
www.shopbabette.com

The company was founded by Babette Pinsky in 1968 as part of the retail design store that she and her first husband operated in Sausalito. Babette the designer has always had a vision that she has held to hard and fast: to provide women with beautiful and wearable clothing that speaks to their individuality and uniqueness.
The company has been through several iterations over the years; retail only, wholesale only, contract services and finally the form it is now. The company operates its own factory in Oakland with eight retail stores, an online boutique and a thriving wholesale business supplying more than 100 select specialty stores around the country.
For the first 23 years, Pinsky operated the business by herself or with the assistance of partners. In 1991, she convinced her husband, Steven to join the company after he had sold his business. With his help and that of others, the company has grown from a struggling business with three employees to where it is today.
Babette and Steven have no children and no relatives interested in joining the business. The employees are their family and they plan to leave a structure in place that will enable them to operate and eventually own it. That process has begun with the appointment of Stephanie Todd as president of the company.
Stephanie is tasked with developing new growth strategies that will insure the company’s success into the foreseeable future. The company is also engaged in developing the next generation of designers to carry on Babette’s vision.


 
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Jessica Bjork Madrigal
Vice President
Bjork Construction Co. Inc.
www.bjorkconstruction.com
This company was founded by the husband and wife team of Don and Jean Bjork in May 1988 as a general contracting firm that specializes in building new custom homes. Construction is generally a male-dominated industry where women are usually in a supportive role, but Vice President Jessica Bjork Madrigal has taken a lead role as vice president and co-owner and is taking the legacy of her family business into the next generation.
Jessica grew up going to construction sites with her parents, working in the family business during the summers in high school and earning her degree in Construction Management from Chico State in 2009. During her college days she interned at different construction companies in the Bay area, and was hired out of college by a construction company where she went from a project engineer to a project manager in less than fourteen months. She is an inspiration to women who work in non-traditional fields such construction.


 
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Christopher Burnley
CEO
Corefact Corporation
www.corefact.com

Christopher Burnley is a serial entrepreneur who started his career in the software business. He also happened to be a real estate enthusiast. He combined the two when he founded Corefact, a marketing company that combines direct mail with technology for the real estate and mortgage industries.
Founded in 2005, Corefact has been a family-oriented business from the beginning. In 2012, Corefact made the decision to focus on analytics-based marketing programs. The Corefact direct mail options for real estate brokers stand out because the materials come with personalized key-codes for free home estimates. They also show maps of the neighborhood, with the recipient’s house highlighted, that note nearby real estate activity. By giving the homeowner a website to go to and a code to use, the idea is to provide a way to follow up beyond just calling the broker.
The company was recently named as one of the fastest-growing privately owned businesses in the Bay Area.


 
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Henry Kalebjian
Coffee Roaster and Owner
Henry’s House of Coffee
www.henryshouseofcoffee.com

Henry Kalebjian’s coffee roasting roots began in a small village called Hajn in modern day Lebanon. His father owned a bakery and served coffee to the locals. Back then coffee wasn’t easily sourced, and you had to roast your own coffee if you wanted to drink it. When Henry was 12, he left school and went to help with the family business. He would help his father roast coffee every day.
Henry’s House of Coffee opened its doors on Irving Street in San Francisco in 1965. Back then, the focus was geared more towards European products such as chocolates from Holland, jams and olives from Italy and cheese from Greece.
As coffee became more of a morning ritual in the Bay Area, Henry began roasting more coffee in the mornings as a way to attract business. The company focus shifted to the coffee beans themselves, bringing in more high-quality beans, and increasing their knowledge of the roasting process. After a small stint, the store was moved to its current location on Noriega in June 1971.
For Henry and his son, Hrag, coffee is part of their lineage, not a business venture. That’s why they’ve been hand roasting coffee for almost 50 years.


 
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Greg & Lisa Hartwell
Founders
Homecare California
www.homecare-california.com

Homecare California was founded in 2008 by Greg and Lisa Hartwell.  The idea to serve seniors resulted from from Lisa’s volunteer work at Stanford University Hospital’s “Partners in Caring” program, where she worked with seniors in the Palo Alto area providing companionship, transportation and other services.
Greg grew up in Texas where his father had founded and run a small business. Indeed, during the financial crisis in the energy business during the early 1980s, the Hartwell’s saw many small businesses of all types go under, but Greg’s father managed to keep things afloat during the tough times.
Greg had the opportunity to see first-hand the joys and the challenges of running a business. And he learned from his father that hard work and perseverance were necessary during the hard times.  He also learned the value of treating every employee from the janitor to the vice president with kindness and respect. His father was loved by his employees and now Greg’s older brother has taken over as the owner of the business, allowing all of the long-time employees to keep their jobs.


 
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Ralph Yanello
CEO and founder
LawRoom
www.lawroom.com

LawRoom is a subscription-based, software-as-a-service (“SaaS”) compliance business that provides online training and online answers to thousands of companies. LawRoom’s CEO and founder, Ralph Yanello started the business at age 50 and through perseverance and hard work, Ralph and his wife, Teresa grew LawRoom into a small multi-million dollar enterprise.
In the early 90s, Ralph was a lawyer with years of experience, and realized that the traditional delivery of legal services was inefficient and costly. Because of these barriers, many well-meaning employers ended up in court or in front of the labor commissioner because they didn’t know how to navigate the complex web of employment laws.
So, Ralph started to research a new concept – how to make the law easy and affordable to access through automation. In 1994, with the financial help of two angel investors and a working spouse, he brought together a team of California lawyer-writers and programmers and formed LawRoom. Teresa would come into the office every day after her full-time job and work every weekend to help start and grow the new venture.
It was a daunting task because the automated law program had never been done. After spending thousands of hours building the library and application–LawRoom launched an automated fax-back service for employers, but quickly realized that there was a new and more powerful way to deliver employment law compliance. It was called the Internet.
In 2000, they converted to the internet and grew from 400 members to over 78,000 during the next 15 years. LawRoom’s innovative approach helps employers comply with employment laws by providing instant, written, tailored answers to over 6,000 employment law questions.


 
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James MacDonald
President
R.F. MacDonald Co.
www.rfmacdonald.com

The company was founded by James MacDonald’s father, Bob MacDonald on March 8, 1956. With eight children at home ranging from one to twelve years in age, a two-year-old home mortgage, jobs with two different boiler sales companies, and selling life insurance and real estate part time, Jim’s father officially established the company to provide mechanical equipment, principally boilers and pumps, to commercial and industrial customers.
It takes a lot of hard work by dedicated and hardworking employees to survive and thrive. Everyone in the company has contributed to make these accomplishments possible. However, Jim wanted it noted that these accomplishments, and those not yet realized, would not be possible if it weren’t for his father’s dedication and entrepreneurial spirit.
Many years and two family generations later, with multiple offices, they continue to furnish and service boilers and pumps throughout California and Nevada. The company is well-positioned to grow into the future for the benefit of future family generations and all of their employees.


 
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Joseph and Marcus Chait
Managing Partners
San Francisco Provident Loan Association
www.sfpla.com
SFPLA has been serving small businesses and private individuals from the same historic landmark location in the heart of SoMa for over 100 years. Originally founded by some of the city’s financial and civic leaders of the time, including William Crocker and Mortimer Fleishacker, the company was purchased by Marcus Chait’s maternal great-grandfather, Frank Rusale, in 1952, and sold to his paternal grandfather, Robert Chait in 1961.
In 1972, Robert’s son, Joseph Chait joined the company and worked tirelessly to build it into what it is today. Marcus Chait is the proud 4th generation managing partner of the business today.
At SFPLA, they pride themselves on working closely with their clients in an honorable and confidential manner to help them acquire the funds they need within their necessary timeframe. While they continue to grow and maintain their core collateral lending business, SFPLA has evolved into one of the largest purchasers of diamonds, colored stones, estate jewelry and precious metals in Northern California.
The Chait family has devoted their lives to contributing to their community and fellow small business owners and will continue to uphold the principles of honesty, discretion, trust, security and integrity on which their company was founded.


 
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Carl A. Santa Maria
President and CEO
Santa Maria & Company Risk and Insurance Services
www.smcrisk.com

Carl A. Santa Maria founded Santa Maria & Company (SMC) Risk and Insurance Services in 2001 with his son, Craig, to provide risk management advisory and commercial insurance brokerage services to businesses in the San Francisco Bay area. Headquartered in Walnut Creek, California, Carl and Craig have built a successful business helping clients across a variety of industries understand and reduce their business risks and protect their businesses with custom, cost-effective insurance protection. SMC has a strong reputation for providing the highest quality service with the greatest integrity.
While Carl enjoyed his corporate work, he realized that the industry’s incentive-based sales model prevented the team approach he knew would result in the best service to the client and more satisfied employees. So he and son Craig, an accomplished insurance underwriting executive, founded Santa Maria & Company in 2001.
They started with a small office, no clients, and family values that always put clients and employees first. Now in its 15th year, SMC has about a dozen employees, including Carl, Craig, Craig’s wife, Victoria, and Carl’s wife, Carol, who together manage premium and risk costs of approximately $20 million. They’ve built their business on a foundation of strong relationships with clients, insurance carriers, vendors and everyone else they do business with. As Carl says, they always default to rounding in favor of their clients and employees.
As Carl looks toward retirement in the coming years, he and Craig are focused on growing the business without compromising the values that have defined their success to date. They remain committed to always having the best team available to meet their clients’ needs for years to come.


 
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Anne Bisagno
President
Xantrion Inc.
www.xantrio.com

Anne Bisagno and Tom Snyder are the president and Chief Operating Officer, respectively, of Xantrion Inc. Xantrion specializes in outsourced IT for small and midsized companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tom became an independent IT consultant in 2000 and was essentially Xantrion’s first team member. Anne joined the business six months later after holding a position as a product manager in a software company.
Fifteen years later, not only are they still happily married with two wonderful children, they have grown the business to 52 people and over $10 million in revenue. .
While there are pros and cons to working with a spouse, Anne and Tom have the same objectives, which are to grow the business and be partners for life. These objectives have provided a foundation of stability and progress for the company. This foundation has helped them attract and retain strong team members, and they find themselves in the happy circumstance of having an employee turnover rate of 4% over the past five years. They believe, if they do good things for their team, they’ll do good things for their clients, and their clients will in turn do good things for the business.