A 23-Year-Old Director’s Perspective
from
November/December 2002
by Bonnie Azab Powell
At a time when most twenty-somethings were still in denial that the
dot-com casino had gone bust, Marc McConnell was starting near the top
of his family’s brick-and-mortar businesses. In May 2001, just two
weeks after graduating from Cornell University’s School of Industrial
and Labor Relations, he became president of privately held Babcock Co.
in Bath, New York. Two months later he got an additional job—outside
board member at Art’s-Way Manufacturing Co., traded on the Nasdaq
SmallCap Market—thereby becoming the youngest of all the 37,230
directors of U.S. public companies in Corporate Board Member’s database.
Neither appointment was a coincidence. Marc’s father, J. Ward McConnell Jr.—who already owned McConnell Manufacturing, which makes farming equipment—had acquired Babcock, a 95-year-old wooden-ladder manufacturer, after it tanked in 2000. J. Ward also loomed large at Art’s-Way, a niche farm-equipment maker in Armstrong, Iowa, where he is the largest stockholder and had been a director since 1996. Frustrated by the company’s eroding finances, he decided to take a break and talked the board into letting his son move into his seat.
“My dad wanted me to follow in his footsteps, and so did I—I’ve been tagging along since I was a baby,” says Marc. Now 23 and single but, he says, “spoken for,” he lives in a small house on the Babcock property, about 30 feet from his office. At Art’s-Way, he attends quarterly board meetings, visits the company between them, and collects something less than $10,000 in director compensation. “The board was skeptical at first about me,” he admits, “and sure, I was nervous—the next-youngest guy is in his fifties. But I’m comfortable now, and I think I’ve gained their respect.”
Last February J. Ward McConnell, 71, bought $800,000 worth of Art’s-Way stock, thereby increasing his stake to 40%, and rejoined the board as chairman. The two McConnells set out to increase field sales representation, repair vendor relationships, and, says Marc, “watch every penny going out and fight for every percentage of margin and every sale.” For the quarter ended May 31, Art’s-Way (fiscal 2001 sales: $10.8 million) made money for the first time in years.
Evidently the board was impressed—with the profit and with an incentive system Marc put in to improve efficiency, a program that rewarded workers with a monthly cash bonus for improved performance. The board recently appointed Marc to its audit committee. Is he nervous, given the high-profile nature of the job? “Not really. With my dad mostly running things, I do have confidence in what’s going on.” The Enron and WorldCom implosions, he says, “just reiterate the point that you should do what you’re supposed to do.”
Marc’s last real vacation was a 12-day, 8,000-mile drive west in his red BMW M3 convertible after graduation. “But I even had to negotiate that out of my dad. He’s from the era that thinks vacations are for lazy people,” he says.
What are the greatest challenges for someone so young in taking on management and board assignments to which others generally bring decades of seasoning? “Especially in the beginning, I had to tread very lightly,” he says. And now? “I think I am accepted, but I always explain why I’m doing something.”
That’s a trait many directors would like to see in their CEOs.
