Family Business

The Otterbein's Family Bakery has changed a lot since it opened in Baltimore in 1881, from a modest storefront pastry shop to a factory operation that churned out about 7 million cookies last year for grocery stores and vending machines. But one thing hasn't changed: The sweet contents of Otterbein's red-and-white bags still are shepherded to market by the family that started it all. Mark Otterbein, who runs the Windsor Mill-based operation, represents the fourth generation of his family to run the bakery, which celebrated its 125th anniversary this month.

Contributor Lexie Mountain is an epic Van Halen fan, and has an epic review of Wednesday night's show at the Verizon Center. I have to admit: I was hoping for VAN HALEN-CON 2012. Sort of like Burning Man, but with a greater possibility of being set on fire by an errant can of Aqua Net or hassled in the parking lot by some toughs in Thom McAns. You know, a real circus. I wanted to fear for my life. But I did not fear for my life. Whole families, with their kids wearing Styx t-shirts, had come to see Van Halen at the Verizon Center Wednesday night.

For years, the family business has been a source of respect and wealth for the Kanes. As a leader in the commercial moving industry, John M. Kane nurtured business and political connections in Montgomery County and Annapolis, and led the Maryland Republican Party during Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s tenure as governor. But as his wife, Mary D. Kane, runs for lieutenant governor with Ehrlich, John Kane is trying to keep himself and the Kane Co. out of the political crossfire. That's because while she seeks public office, John Kane is defending the business in a lawsuit that alleges federal contract fraud.

The flowers are not the only things in bloom at Kroh's Nursery year after year. In fact, this family business has deep roots that continue to grow in this Aberdeen nursery. In 1980, husband and wife, Robert and Mickie Sachs purchased Kroh's Nursery because they wanted to spend the rest of their lives working in a nursery and garden center. And after high school, their son Jeff started working the family business. Today, Jeff runs the day-to-day operations and says, “I started working in the nursery with my parents when I was just 10 years old. I remember holidays and Mother's Day, which are the busiest days of the year for us.” Though Robert and Mickie still work at the nursery today, Jeff Sachs runs the business and has expanded what they offer with custom design/build landscape services including hand crafted stone walls and patios, garden pools and waterfalls, and landscape maintenance.

Family matters, but when it comes to city business involving family, Baltimore City Council President Sheila Dixon must step aside. There's no ambiguity in the city ethics law on this point: An elected official must refrain from "any matter" involving a sibling's interest. Ms. Dixon never should have participated in a City Council discussion on minority involvement in the city's cable franchise because her sister works for a firm that has gotten this work in the past. The council president should know better.

Approaching age 65 and concerned for their family's future, Florence and Hank Billing began figuring out how to pass along their family business and personal assets to their five children.Of the five -- four daughters and one son -- only their son, Kurt, was interested in running the family's two Southampton, N.Y., clothing stores.Kurt, who was selling software to retail stores in Seattle, solved half the problem by opting to return home. In May, he bought Billing's Lingerie on Main Street.

If you own a family business and you plan that your children will continue it, you have to act now. If you do not, you risk that when you and your spouse die, the business may be sold or liquidated to pay estate taxes. It happens all too often, yet usually can be avoided by careful planning.Congress is expected to dig deeper into the assets of estates in its continuing search for increased federal revenue. With America's population growing older and wealthier, estates obviously are a rich source for new tax money, waiting to be mined.

Barbara A. Stritzinger, a retired co-owner and business manager of a family-owned appliance refinishing business, died of leukemia Jan. 26 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Long Green resident was 83. Barbara A. Vasold was born in Baltimore and raised in Highlandtown. She was a graduate of St. Michael's Business School and in 1943 married Aloysius J. Stritzinger. In 1955, the couple established Appliance Refinishers Inc. in Long Green, specializing in appliances, kitchen cabinets and furniture.

Eleanor B. Dopman, an officer of a family-owned millwork business, died Saturday of a heart attack at Franklin Square Hospital Center. She was 84 and lived in Timonium. She was a former Homeland resident. Until she retired about 12 years ago, she worked in claims services at Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Towson. She also did the accounting for several family-owned businesses, including Church House Inc., a church-building firm; Dopman Millwork Corp. on Eastern Avenue; and Elton Construction Co. Born Eleanor Bernard in Baltimore and raised on East 22nd Street, she was a 1936 Eastern High School graduate.

FORTY-FIVE YEARS ago, after his team won the world championship in sudden death overtime, Arthur Donovan, legendary Baltimore Colt and Falstaff of American football, invested his bonus in a country club without a golf course. But while the Valley Country Club, in the Riderwood area of Baltimore County, might not have had 18 holes and fabulous fairways, it had the grand, 19th-century hilltop manor house and 12 acres of a former dairy farm. With Artie Donovan's winnings from the December 1958 NFL championship, it soon had tennis courts, a snack bar, a clubhouse and the huge swimming pool that more than 400 members, their families and friends still enjoy each summer.

Searching for some good old-fashioned family fun that doesn't involve a video game? If so, you should check out Churchville Golf Range. This family-run recreation center, on Churchville Road, has two miniature golf courses, a driving range, nine softball and baseball batting cages, a golf pro shop and an arcade for those who still want their video game fix. Joyce and Ken Rizer purchased, renovated and expanded this Churchville gem from Joyce's...

On Christmas morning, an unidentified man called the restaurant and liquor store Wesley's in Elkton and asked for the winning Powerball numbers. When a clerk read the numbers over the phone, the mystery caller said, "Looks like I am the winner. " So far, that's all the longtime family-run restaurant, lounge and liquor store knows about the person who won the $125 million jackpot. Maryland Lottery officials don't know who the winner is either. Like nearly all state offices, the agency was closed Monday, said spokeswoman Carole Y. Everett.

Shortly after Boo Corrigan was hired as Army's athletic director earlier this year, he found himself talking to a group of graduates of the U.S. Military Academy. Nobody in the room noticed, but Corrigan seemed to be doing a pretty good imitation of a man many consider one of the most influential and respected college athletic administrators of his time. "I found my mannerisms were the same as my dad, the way I was talking," Corrigan recalled. "He's a lot smarter than I am. I called my brother David and said, 'I think I've become Papa Gene.'" The influence of his father, a Baltimore native who was the athletic director at Virginia and Notre Dame before becoming the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, was what directed his now 44-year old son back into what essentially was the family business.

Joe Graziose and his family have recently moved into their fourth home at the same location — the Ritz-Carlton Residences along Baltimore's Inner Harbor. "We've tested locations on all fronts of the building," he said. "Our last unit overlooked Federal Hill. " It is not that the Grazioses are fickle or hard to please. On the contrary. As senior vice president of RXR Realty, developers of the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Baltimore, as well as one of its investors, Graziose has always opened his and wife Jackie's home to prospective buyers looking for a unit in the upscale complex.

I wish I had met Bosley Wright three years earlier. Back in 2008, I embarked on a do-it-mostly-myself kitchen renovation that included adding architectural millwork around the door and window frames. Easy enough, except that I wanted to match the existing original millwork installed in 1918. They didn't have anything even close at Lowes or Home Depot. Faced with what I thought was no other inexpensive option, I purchased raw lumber and then cut, chiseled, planed, and sanded the lumber to match.

Their great-grandfathers each founded Baltimore companies, a publisher and a printer, and their families have built close ties working together since the 1950s to produce the venerable Baltimore Jewish Times. But Andrew Alter Buerger and Charles M. Roebuck III have been doing most of their talking in the last few years through lawyers — through bankruptcy filings, lawsuits both corporate and personal, through legal motions and appeals to the state's second-highest court. What had appeared to be a successful business relationship has become a "nasty, 50-year-old marriage," as Buerger put it. Things had gotten so bad between Buerger, publisher of the Jewish Times and Style magazine, and Roebuck, president of H.G. Roebuck & Son Inc., his former printer and now a key creditor, that a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge said from the bench last month that the case looks less like a bankruptcy than a divorce.

An article in last week's MBW gave an incorrect spelling of the name of a family business specialist with Ernst & Young who was quoted regarding the problems of succession in such businesses. In fact, the man's name is Bruce Bullock.MBW regrets the error.Of the images that make up the American dream, the family business rests right up there with mom, baseball and apple pie.A recent study by BDO Seidman, a national accounting and consulting firm, showed that 75 percent of business owners want their children to eventually come on board and help run the company.

MEMBERS OF THE Pitts family saw something they liked in Islam "Sam" Abu Alrub. He showed smarts, initiative and drive - enough that the family business's trusted chief financial officer groomed him as his eventual successor. The company paid for most of Alrub's M.B.A. and refresher courses in accounting. It hired Alrub's father, brother and friends who had come to Baltimore from the Middle East. "He showed signs that he really wanted to learn and to grow," said David Pitts, president of the David Edward Co., a family-owned Baltimore company that makes high-end office furniture.

Many of you may recognize the name Ralph Walls because his family has been a steadfast part of Harford County for over 90 years. His parents came to live and work in the county as dairy farmers in 1919. Ralph, 83, graduated from Bel Air High School in 1945 and he ran a successful business for over 50 years. After high school, Ralph worked briefly for Harford Mutual Insurance Company, but soon found his true calling at the Central Motor Company in Bel Air, which is today's Plaza Ford, Inc. “I started out as a bookkeeper and became office manager, then general manager and finally in 1962, my wife and I bought in. Those were good years, I enjoyed the business, and it was rewarding,” says Ralph.

August Ernest "Bud" Eckels Jr., former president and general manager of a family-owned Baltimore ice cream manufacturing plant, died Thursday of a hemorrhage at a Leesburg, Fla., hospital. He was 88. Mr. Eckels, whose father established Eckels Ice Cream & Dairy Co. in 1918 and whose mother was a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised on Mayfield Avenue in the city's Arcadia neighborhood. He was a 1940 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. His college studies at the University of Maryland were interrupted when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Mr. Eckels, who was trained as a bombardier, flew 50 missions while based in Italy with the 15th Air Force's 464th Bomb Group.