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Falls Active Adult Center celebrated Parisian Day

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Forty Fort begins search for new borough manager

WILKES-BARRE &#8212; It was a presentation on family business, its successes and its failures &#8212; its loyalties and its betrayals.It&#8217;s the kind of story that would make a great TV series. In fact, it sort of did just that.The story of one family&#8217;s struggle in business was told by Doug Box, the youngest of four sons of Cloyce Box, a Texas businessman who was the inspiration behind the creation of J.R. Ewing, the ruthless head of the Ewing family on the TV series &#8220;Dallas&#8221; in the 1980s. The Box family home was used as the original Ewing Southfork ranch shown on the show&#8217;s opening.Metaphorically, the actual family home burned, as would the relationships between the Box brothers.Doug, 58, revealed a lot during his speech &#8212; one he admits can be difficult to get through each time he delivers it.Doug was at Wilkes University Wednesday to speak at the monthly meeting of the Family Business Alliance. Those attending were afforded a lesson in family conflict and given an inside look at the reality of the rise and fall of a family business.It was a tale of the goose that laid the golden egg, only to have the goslings scramble it.In the Box family, Cloyce was the patriarch with all the qualities one would expect of a self-made millionaire. He was tall and handsome, college educated, a man who played professional football and who worked hard to earn his way. As you might expect, women were drawn to him, his millions and his private jet.Cloyce Box caught passes from Bobby Lane with the Detroit Lions on two NFL championship teams and, according to Doug, caught just as many passes from admiring women. Cloyce and his wife had four boys, Don, Gary, Tom and Doug.Cloyce built his company. He went from the construction business at the George A. Fuller Construction Co. in New York City to founding his Oklahoma Cement Co. and, eventually, the Box Energy Co. Cloyce led a charmed life, his son said, having worked his way up from childhood poverty to a wealthy man &#8212; wealthy enough to help former Detroit Lions players by establishing a pension fund. He even bought them championship rings.Doug described the Box brothers as follows:&#8226; Don was smart, but lazy and never learned how to work. He lived by the saying, &#8220;Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?&#8221;&#8226; Gary was a high school dropout who now operates a convenience store in West Texas. He stayed out of the family feud.&#8226; Tom was focused and tough-minded, a hard worker who was organized. He wanted to be just like his father.&#8226; Doug never wanted to work in the family business; he never wanted to be under his dad&#8217;s shadow. But he ended up ruining Tom&#8217;s career.Following Cloyce&#8217;s death in 1993, Tom became the company&#8217;s CEO and Don was named chairman of the board.&#8220;Anything with two heads is a monster,&#8221; Doug said.The family business problems began long before Cloyce&#8217;s death, Doug said. The cement company was sold and a 10-year court battle was waged with J.R. Simplot, an Idaho billionaire who won a $28.5 million judgment against the family business.More trouble followed and Cloyce and his wife divorced. Cloyce married a former model 20 years younger. The new Mrs. Box took to remodeling the family home, only to see it go up in flames during the project.At 70 years old, Cloyce was still the CEO of the family business. He died in his sleep from a heart attack in 1993.&#8220;A family business always dies from within,&#8221; Doug said. &#8220;It&#8217;s never due to external reasons.&#8221;Doug said the brothers couldn&#8217;t get along; they didn&#8217;t communicate well. He said there was no trust or harmony.&#8220;We had it all,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And we lost it all.&#8221;The story goes that Doug led a group to dispose of Tom as CEO. Tom, in turn, sued Doug. The matter ended up before a federal judge who was a friend of Cloyce Box&#8217;s and whom Cloyce had helped many years before when he was starting out.Doug said the judge gave the Box boys a month to settle their differences or he would order their company put into receivership, an action Doug said was like getting a sexually transmitted disease.&#8220;You dont want that,&#8221; he said.The Box brothers decided to put aside their differences and sell the company to Simplot for $220 million in 1997. In 2006, Simplot would sell the company for $1.36 billion.&#8220;But that&#8217;s not the real loss here,&#8221; Doug said. &#8220;What was lost was our family legacy.&#8221;He said his parents were special people and his father built a huge business.&#8220;They were special people,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They deserved better than what we were able to give them.&#8221;Doug said his family would have benefited from family governance. He said things like managing conflict, leadership development, accountability, setting goals, decision-making and succession planning would have &#8212; should have &#8212; been part of their business plan.&#8220;The Box brothers had no shared vision,&#8221; he said, adding that greed is never good.Doug said selling the business didn&#8217;t create wealth for the family.He now talks about his experience to anyone who will listen. He earns his living by trying to help family businesses from making the same mistakes.Doug, Tom and Gary are on speaking terms. Don died in 2010. Their mom passed away in 2007, the last time the four brothers were together.Despite making a living as a family business consultant, Doug struggles with each presentation.&#8220;It&#8217;s hard,&#8221; he said after Wednesday&#8217;s speech. &#8220;It&#8217;s a painful story that is not at all cathartic.&#8221;The Box brothers could never work it out.&#8220;Every time I thought it couldn&#8217;t get any worse, it did,&#8221; Doug said.<style>
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<div class="neCaption">Doug Box was the featured speaker at Wilkes University&#8217;s &#8216;Family Business Alliance&#8217; Wednesday morning. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/web1_TTL090915DougBox.jpg</photo0><caption0>Doug Box was the featured speaker at Wilkes University&#8217;s &#8216;Family Business Alliance&#8217; Wednesday morning. </caption0><photoCredit0>Clark Van Orden | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>By Bill O&#8217;Boyleboboyle@www.timesleader.com</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Reach Bill O&#8217;Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.</shirttailMeta></div>

A tale of family business success and failure