Oscarlyn Elder:
Planning can help us tackle some of the most complex decisions we face in life, but sometimes we have to embrace the unexpected. That's what our guest today, Marietta Lee, found herself doing when she made a career pivot to work at the hydraulic engineering company, her grandfather founded in 1948.
I'm honored to have Marietta here to share more about her story, the legacy of family, business leadership, some of the unexpected events she experienced, and what she feels other multi-generational business owners can learn from the Lee Company's 75-year history.
I'm Oscarlyn Elder Co-Chief Investment Officer for Truist Wealth. And this is, I've Been Meaning to Do That, a podcast from Truist Wealth, a purpose-driven financial services company. We appreciate you listening. This is the fourth in our series on running a family business. The first episode dealt with defining what a family business is and how the goals for these businesses can involve more than revenues and profits.
And the second episode, we talked about getting family members involved at an early age and how doing this can help them identify roles in the family even if they don't want to be involved in the business. And in the third episode, we talked about preparing for those moments when succession and transitions take place.
Today's episode is a capstone on our series where we'll get a personal perspective on what it was like for our guests to go through those succession and transition experiences. If you want to take notes on today's episode, we have a worksheet that you can download and print. You can find it by selecting this episode at truist.com/dothat. My guest for this episode is Marietta Lee, CEO of the Lee Company. Welcome to the podcast, Marietta.
Marietta Lee:
Oscarlyn, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and really looking forward to our conversation.
Oscarlyn Elder::
I'm excited to have you on the podcast. Your family business has overcome the odds. It is in the third generation of family leadership. What is the Lee Company and what's your role?
Marietta Lee:
The Lee Company is a manufacturing business. We're based in Connecticut. It was started by my grandfather 75 years ago, and we design and make miniature hydraulic components for the aerospace, medical and automotive industries. And I've had a variety of different positions here at the company over my over 20 years with the company, but most recently, as of about a year ago, I became CEO.
Oscarlyn Elder:
So a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, an intense experience. Why don't you take us back to your first at the company? What was it?
Marietta Lee:
My father, for many years, was president of the company and I grew up with my grandfather running the business and leader my father and then my uncle. And so I really felt that I grew up in the business and came here to visit my father at work. And the most exciting thing for me was to get to sit in a swivel chair and then he would take me to the vending machine and we would get peanut M&Ms. So I really grew up here and we have long-term employees that remember me when I was yay high, coming in. But my first real experience working in the business was on a vacation during college. My father put me to work in the factory and in the most basic of basic jobs.
I was basically taking apart and loading it in a machine and a button. And I did that for eight hours a day and I must have loaded hundreds of parts doing that. And it was the most mundane job, which is now not even performed by a human being. Now we have a little robot that does it. So that was my introduction to the business and I was pretty clear after doing that for a few weeks that the business was not something that I wanted to do long-term and went off and had a completely different career and then came back to the business later.
Oscarlyn Elder:
So you got that ground floor experience during college.
Marietta Lee:
Yes.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Being on the factory floor. And then once you experienced that, you were like, I'm going to go do something else for a while.
Marietta Lee:
A hundred percent.
Oscarlyn Elder:
And so you had a very successful career, I believe in broadcasting and you're an attorney. I probably should give that ground as well. Maybe give our listeners just a little vignette into your professional life before you came back to the company.
Marietta Lee:
Sure, so when I finished college, I went on to law school. That was at a time during the O.J Simpson trial, JonBenét Ramsey and sort of legal broadcast journalism became really popular. And all these journalists were former lawyers and they would go on the news and comment and they were on covering the trial live. And I thought, that is the coolest thing ever. That is what I want to do. So I went to law school, I got a law degree, I passed the bar. During law school, I was working for CBS News for their Supreme Court correspondent, helping him do all his research and preparing for these court cases and decisions that he would then go on national TV and report on. And it was great. And then I got my law degree and I went to go work for the ABC Affiliate in Houston, Texas. And I was in their public corruption fraud division, and I was the person that went undercover with the purse cam.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Oh, neat.
Marietta Lee:
I mean, my first job, I show up from Connecticut for this job in Houston, Texas, and they put me in a disguise. They set me up with a purse cam and they send me to a strip club.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Oh, wow.
Marietta Lee:
So not only had I never been to a strip club before, I'm in a completely new city. I'm this little girl from Connecticut, I've gone a purse cam and I'm a female by myself going into a strip club. Long and short of it, we had gotten a tip that the fire inspectors in Houston, Texas were on duty in the strip clubs regularly. So somehow miraculously I was able to get amazing footage of all these on-duty fire inspectors in the strip club, drinking and carrying on. So that was my first real job in television news. And then I went on from there to work for Court TV where I reported on the Supreme Court and Washington Legal Affairs for them, and then went on to work for CBS News.
Oscarlyn Elder:
So what—I was going to say—
Marietta Lee:
I know your question. Go ahead. You're going to say how did you wind up in–
Oscarlyn Elder:
Exactly.
Marietta Lee:
You went from a strip club in Houston, Texas with a hidden purse cam all the way to this little company in Connecticut making miniature hydraulic components. Yes, I understand.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Exactly. You've got it.
Marietta Lee:
It's a complete 180. And I have to say for those of our listeners that are in family businesses, you're always thinking about who's the next leader from the family for the business. And of my 17 siblings and cousins, if the family had to vote on the least likely person to ever come into the business, I would've been that person. I had two children and I was living in Washington D.C. and I said, I really want to be near my family and they're in Connecticut. So my husband at the time quit his job and I quit my job and I said, "We'll figure it out." And we put the house up for sale and it sold in two hours. So we were like, "All right, now we're going." And we got to Connecticut and I was interviewing for jobs in TV journalism, and my father came to me and said, "Have you thought about joining the business?"
And I said, "Yes, and no, thank you. I'm good."
And that conversation went on for a couple weeks and I said, "Okay, let's talk about what that might look like because I'm not an engineer and I have no background in manufacturing. I don't even know what I could bring to the table." And he said, "Well, you've produced TV shows. You're very good organizationally, you know how to get things done, and we have some openings where we could use that skillset." I said, "Okay, let's talk about what that might look like." And so he said, there's two positions. There's one in our facilities department helping coordinate construction of some manufacturing facilities, which at the time we had a lot going on. And then there's one in HR. I said, "Okay, well why didn't I come into the company and talk to the two people that I would be working for and then we'll see what seems to be the right fit."
And he said, "Absolutely not. You can't come in." I said, "Well, why not? What do you mean? You want me to make a decision and I can't even talk to the people that I might be working for?" He said, "Yeah, no. Uh-uh, you have to decide."
“Well, why on earth wouldn't you let me come in?" He said, "Because you're going to talk to two different groups and you're going to ultimately pick one, and then the group that you didn't pick, he's always going to wonder why you didn't pick them, and that's going to upset people." So I said, "All right. Well, the facilities job sounds interesting. I'm pretty good. I can build a building. I can organize that. Why don't we talk about that?" Then he told me what he would pay me, which was so much less than I was making in my previous job.
It was so much less that in fact, after taxes, I couldn't even pay the babysitter to take care of my kids while I was at work. So after a little bit of negotiation, he went up maybe 2% on the salary and I said, "Okay, this is really a long-term decision. This is not a short-term decision. We'll figure this out. I won't be able to afford my dry cleaning bill, but I will be able to pay the babysitter and we'll go from there." So I joined the company as the assistant facilities manager, which I like to call myself the assistant to the head janitor, which is an exaggeration, but it was something I had the skillset for. I didn't have the background in. I was being paid, at the time, sort of less than someone from the outside would be paid for that position, which is a family policy.
We certainly don't want family members joining the company because of a cushy job opportunity with high pay, so that's very important. So less than market rate for the position. And I think my father found me a large closet as my office and put the desk in. It was so small, I had to turn sideways to get behind my desk and shimmy in. And people would come into my office to meet me. And I think they really just wanted to see how small the office was and what my father had done. And I was a little perturbed, but I think all of those things that he did was such a good example for the family and for my fellow employees. And I think our family as a whole has such a high regard for our employees, and employees are really our number one priority. And it was so important to him that the next generation not come in and be entitled. And everything that he did at the time, I didn't fully understand. Like paying me less than the market rate, giving me the smallest office was so important to my success at the company.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Yeah. And it sounds like your father was very forward-looking very thoughtful, that the family culture is very thoughtful around ensuring that someone from the family who's coming in really isn't given an advantage, but that the perception is just very clear that we value all of our employees. You're going to have challenges in your path and it's just not an easy ticket to something else.
Marietta Lee:
I think that's so true, and I think it's so important for families, as family members come into the business, to really be upfront about how much of a microscope you will be under as a family member working in the business. And I don't know that I fully understood that because I came from a different career where I had really, really good friends that I worked with and I would see them outside of work. It's not that you can't have good friends when you're in a family business, but it's just a completely different environment if you're a family member. If you are late to work, everyone in the whole company knows that you showed up late to work. If you sneeze, everybody knows that you sneezed. And I didn't fully appreciate what that was going to be like. I was warned, but I didn't really get it.
And I think that's such an important message to send younger generations coming into the business. And we have a family employment policy where you have to work outside the business for a certain number of years before you can even be considered to into the business. And in my opinion, that's very important. I mean, I'd never planned on coming into the business, so it wasn't a big deal to me that there was this policy. But I think family members that want to come into the business and would like to come into the business right after college, they're required to go work somewhere else for a number of years. And I think that teaches you so many things about work and how to treat people and how to conduct yourself in a professional manner, that is very important that you do outside of the microscope of working in your family business. So you can make mistakes. You can make mistakes.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Yes. That's very powerful.
Marietta Lee:
And it cannot be a big deal and not reflect poorly on the family or yourself as you move through the business.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Right, because once you're in the family business, what I heard you say is that you in a sense, a role model for everybody. Everybody is looking at you, eyes are on you. There's a large magnifying glass, and if you're late to work, if you lose your temper, any of those things that happen, it's going to be assessed at a different level because you are a family member and really you are the business in a lot of ways, right? You're representing the business and the history.
Marietta Lee:
100%. And I think about some of the idiotic things I did early in my career that was not at the Lee Company, thankfully. And I think, oh my goodness, thank goodness I didn't do that at the Lee Company because it would've been a much bigger deal than it actually was.
Oscarlyn Elder:
So Marietta, was there this moment between facilities and CEO where you were like, I'm into this. I'm all in. This is my passion, this is where I belong.
Marietta Lee:
Yeah. I have to say, when I first joined the business, there were a couple days where I really doubted my decision to join the business. I really did and thought, what have I done? And one of the things that my father said, probably 10 minutes before I walked in the door my first day, he said, "It's not like the mafia, but you really can never leave." I said, "What do you mean by that?" He's like, "Well, you could leave, but it's going to create a problem because the whole family's going to wonder why you left. The whole company is going to wonder why you left." So that's what he said as I walked in. So I felt like I had sealed the deal just by walking through the front door. But as I moved through different positions with the company from assistant facilities manager, then to facilities manager, then I realized this is really an engineering company and I don't have an engineering degree.
I went back to school at night to get a master's degree in engineering management. So at least I could speak the lingo and I understood how factories worked and how things moved through manufacturing floor and understand supply chain and all of that stuff. And to do that at night was challenging because I had two little kids and a full-time job. But I really felt that that was important to me to have that knowledge and be able to speak the lingo. After I got that degree, I was promoted into a position running one of our product lines and ran a different product line for many years after that and then moved into the role of Chief Operating Officer. So I got a lot of experience across the whole company before I became CEO.
Oscarlyn Elder:
You had senior leadership roles before you became CEO. Was it automatic? Was it a given once you reached that level that you would become CEO?
Marietta Lee:
No, it wasn't. It wasn't. We're structured so that the board would need to vote in the next CEO anyway. So even if I was the heir apparent for many years, there was still a formality that had to take place. Leading up to that transition, a lot things happened that I thought might derail my chances of becoming CEO. My marriage blew up in sort of a terrible way. I struggled with that and COVID hit and we didn't know what was going to happen with the business at that point. I mean, we're still here to tell the tale, but that was a rocky road. And so there were a lot of things that happened and when ultimately the family came and said, "We want to consider you for this," I said, "Well, I appreciate that, but I want you to know that you should consider hiring someone on the outside because you can get somebody better than me to do this job."
And they said, "We really want a family member." I said, "Okay, let's not forget this conversation because there is somebody better." And they said, "No, it's very important to the family and we believed the business that be a family member."
Oscarlyn Elder:
So once they had that conversation with you and you knew that there was this, it sounds like a very deeply held belief, family cultural element that they wanted a family member to be CEO, did you start thinking about how to prepare for the role and what you may need to do and how others could help you in that?
Marietta Lee:
Certainly. And I am a big believer in education, so the first thing I do is sign up for classes and all of that. Also, I know in your previous podcasts you've talked about imposter syndrome, which is common in family businesses and common for women. And I think I've probably had imposter syndrome my whole life and then entering into a role as CEO of a family business that my family owns, I just felt like I don't deserve this. I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough. And so I took it on with vigor. I'm going to over prepare for this. And so that's what I set on doing through a variety of different avenues. I was a member of Vistage Group, which is a peer advisory group. I had already gotten my master's degree in engineering management. I went back to take classes at the Harvard Business School for presidents of companies.
I got myself a CEO coach. I worked with the president of the company at the time through a laundry list of things I didn't know, like how can I get better at reading financial statements, how can I get better at this and that? And we sort of just went through the list and it wasn't as if all of that happened and then I was ready and then I took on the CEO role. I mean, I'm still doing all of that and still learning and still evolving. And I hope to be a better leader in five years than I am today and continue to get better and continue to learn.
Oscarlyn Elder:
It strikes me, in your continuous learning mindset, that it mirrors something that's really important to the company and looking and hearing about your company, innovation is essential to the life of the company. And innovation requires creative thinking, continuous learning, all of those elements and you're embodying that in your approach to leadership and leadership development.
Marietta Lee:
Well, thank you.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Yeah.
Marietta Lee:
Thank you for that. Yes, and we pride ourselves on our innovation here at the Lee Company and staying on the cutting edge of technology and designing products that go into all sorts of things throughout our daily lives, cars and airplanes and medical devices and those industries are changing all the time and we've got to keep up with that. And I think my grandfather, the founder of the company, he was like the mad inventor. He was truly, I believe, a genius. And a lot of the products that we sell today, he invented himself, which is really amazing. And we really try to evolve, daily. What's coming next? What's going on in this market? What should we be thinking about?
Oscarlyn Elder:
Marietta, your path that you've talked about is unique. When you look back at the journey, do you see positives in the way that the journey unfolded and the path has unfolded to date that just really shout to you?
Marietta Lee:
Yeah, that's such an interesting question and I feel like I followed my passion before I came to the company and I feel like I really did well and really enjoyed that career. Joining this business, and they say this in a lot of family businesses, if you're not the founder of your family business, you're following someone else's dream. This is my grandfather's dream. It wasn't my dream, but I find so much satisfaction in working here and being able to steward the business hopefully to the next generation and grow the business for the next generation and future generations. I find so much satisfaction in that. And so I think my sort of strange and bizarre route to where I am in the end has served me well and I hope it served the company well too, because I have all this random experience and had I just been an engineer and come right to the business, maybe I wouldn't be able to bring the diversity of my experience to the table.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Yeah. What I'm hearing very clearly in your voice is really this care and love for the company and the employees.
Marietta Lee:
Right. I mean, I think it's so important to have when you wake up in the morning, why am I going to this job? Why? And my answer is because of the amazing employees, because of my amazing family, but also our products go into things that affect everybody, every day. When your plane lands safely, you have a little tiny bit of the lead company to thank for that. And when you get your blood tested, there's a little bit of the Lee company that you thank for that. And when your car goes down the highway safely and all of that, it's just really, really exciting. It gets me out of bed in the morning.
Oscarlyn Elder:
All right. I have an additional question for you, which is what advice would you have for other family businesses that are trying to accomplish a multi-generational, family-led business? What advice would you have for them as their thinking about transitions within the life of their company and their family?
Marietta Lee:
Well, I would say get the kids involved early. My son, who's the eldest of the fourth generation, started coming to the factory and coming to family meetings and coming to sessions with Truist when he was three or four years old. And he started learning about the company then. Obviously in a very rudimentary way. But throughout the years he really learned a lot about the company. He's now 26, he's an equity analyst. He is obsessed now with the company. He reads the annual report cover to cover. He serves on one of our boards. When he comes home to see me or when he calls me, he has questions about things that are going on in the world and how it impacts the company and have I thought about this and have I thought about that. And I really think that is because the seeds were planted early. And at our annual family meeting, we have tours for the young children.
Sometimes we show them, here's a SpaceX launch video, parts we made were on that. And they love that. And we take them on factory tours and I try to show them the robots that are doing things and all of this. And I have to tell you recently we had a group on a tour and one of the young kids could care less about the robot, which I thought was pretty cool. I mean, we had programmed the robot to pick up a Snickers bar and hand it to the kid. He didn't care. He had found a mop in the corner and was sweeping the floor of the plant and he thought that was the coolest thing. He's been talking about that.
His mom tells me for a full year in school, he tells all his friends, he went to the factory, he mopped the floor. And I know that seems like a really silly anecdote, but that's a seed that's been planted. This kid lives in Nebraska, we're in Connecticut. He now has ties to the company and next time he comes back, he'll learn more and more about it. And I think just getting the family involved and not in a way to pressure them to come work here, but just so that they know about the business and they know this is part of their life and part of their family.
Oscarlyn Elder:
It's part of their story. So very clearly what you are saying is plant the seeds early, get the next generation involved, get them exposed, give them the opportunity to understand their story and how they're fitting into the family story.
Marietta Lee:
Exactly. Exactly. It's so powerful when they get involved early, especially if their parents don't work here and they're not sort of around in the community, it's really important to educate them and meet them where they are. If they're ready to mop the floor, if they're ready to play with a robot or if they're ready to be CEO.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Marietta, thank you so much for sharing that very wise advice to business owners. We have a tradition on this podcast of asking our guests what they've been meaning to do. And I'm hoping that you have an I've been meaning to do that item that you can share with us.
Marietta Lee:
I do. I have two I've been meaning to do that items and I would say I hit the ground running every morning, putting out fires, running around, meeting to meeting, and it is a whirlwind. And usually I look up the clock says four o'clock, and I say, "How is it four o'clock already?" And what I have been meaning to do and I need to actually block out on my calendar now is to just stop and pause and think. Not put out a fire. Stop and pause and think, is what we are doing, what we should be doing for the company? Are we doing this for the right reasons? And also not only doing that for the business, but also for the family. Is the family doing what they should be doing? Is everybody in the family on board with what we're doing? Which I think I actually have to put this in my calendar, like stop and block it out.
Oscarlyn Elder:
It sounds like your action item is block that time out on the calendar and give yourself the space for reflection. We're going to check back with you. I know you've got deep connections with some of our Truist teammates, and so I'm going to put a little word in the ear maybe of David Hare who's a friend of this podcast so that he can ask you about that the next time that you see him.
Marietta Lee:
Oh, so you're putting on his list an action item to follow up with me to make sure that I have blocked out time to reflection. That is the service you get from Truist. Thank you.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Well, Marietta, I have to say I've really enjoyed this conversation and I believe that our listeners, our business owners of whatever size business, all size businesses are really going to benefit from hearing about your experience. And you are incredibly impressive. I just want to say you should have no imposter syndrome. You are enough. You are amazing, and I hope you'll come back and join us again for another conversation.
Marietta Lee:
Oh my gosh, thank you Oscarlyn. It has been such a pleasure and our family has really had such a great relationship with Truist and your organization has helped us through a lot. And we want to thank you and thank you for having me on today.
Oscarlyn Elder:
Well, we are grateful for your relationship with Truist, so thank you.
And for you listening, thank you for joining me today. If you missed the other parts of this series, please go back and listen. If you liked this episode, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and tell friends and family about it. If you have a question for me or suggestion for this podcast, email me at dothat@truist.com. I'll be back soon for another episode of I've Been Meaning to Do That, the podcast that gets you moving toward fulfilling your purpose and achieving your financial goals. Talk to you soon.
