Wake Forest to Present Family Business of the Year Awards

WINSTONSALEM, N.C. - The Family Business Center at the Wake Forest University Schools of Business will honor four companies in a ceremony Thursday, May 6, at Discovery Place in Charlotte.

The four companies are recipients of the N.C. Family Business of the Year Awards. The winners are: small category, Griffith Real Estate Services of Charlotte; medium category, Partners In Care of Charlotte; large category, Pate Dawson of Goldsboro. Birch Brothers Southern of Waxhaw is the winner of the Century Award.

John Allison, former BB&T CEO and a distinguished professor of practice in the Schools of Business at Wake Forest, will be the keynote speaker. 

Kathy Baker, director of the Wake Forest Family Business Center, is looking forward to recognizing the deserving companies, all of which have made positive contributions in their respective communities. 

“The event will provide a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the success our honorees have achieved in combining the best of family and business,” she said. “Last year’s event was a great success, and I expect that many of our Family Business Center member companies will participate in this year’s program and will help us in honoring these outstanding businesses.” 

The E.C. Griffith Company, which began in 1912, is one of Charlotte’s oldest family owned real estate firms, and the company has developed some of Charlotte’s leading institutions for the past 95 years, the company Web site says. E.C. Griffith Companies and members of the Griffith family are concerned environmentalists, constantly working toward a balance between development and conservation. 

In 2003, Don and Sally Olin founded Partners In Care, an in-home care-giving service for seniors and adults, but it’s also much more. The company helps seniors retain their dignity and remain independent in their homes while providing peace of mind for their families. The company’s tagline, “Families Helping Families” is truth in advertising, proving a for-profit service can flourish if its foundation and operational structure is built with strong morals and ethics. The company’s five family members and 160 extended family members work by the same philosophy -- treat each client as though they would treat their own parents. 

In the past 125 years, the Pate Dawson Company Inc. -- founded in 1885 as by J.H. Pate as J.H. Pate Grocery -- has grown from a small independent grocery store to the 27th largest food-service distribution company in the US. With a family history that has focused on a willingness to change and always putting family first, the company has not only survived but has thrived through bad and good economic times. During the past five years, the Pate Dawson Company Inc. has grown sales to more than $225 million, yet the values -- hard work, honesty and integrity -- remain firmly rooted. 

The Century Award winner, Birch Brothers Southern, was founded 127 years ago in Massachusetts by Albert Birch, though the business actually began in England 38 years before. The company has transitioned from a manufacturer of textile machinery to the maker of custom machinery for a variety of industries, including aerospace, automotive, nonwovens, technical textile, medical, paper, home fashions and others. The company, which has 25 employees, has purposely managed sales and company size to remain flat for the past five years, thus avoiding debt accumulation and overextension as new markets was explored. 

Awards Patron level sponsors BB&T, Fennebresque & Co., GenSpring Family Offices, PricewaterhouseCoopers, ReGeneration Partners and Southern Community Bank & Trust have provided generous financial support for the event. Business North Carolina is the media sponsor, and GenSpring Family Offices sponsors the special section on the Family Business of the Year Awards to run in the May issue of Business North Carolina. Biltmore Winery is the event’s beverage sponsor. 

Several Family Business Center members have contributed to the success of the awards program. Wildfire provided design of all the marketing materials, and Sun Printing is printing the programs. 

About Wake Forest University Schools of Business (www.business.wfu.edu): The Wake Forest University Schools of Business offer undergraduate programs in finance, accounting, mathematical business, and business and enterprise management, and graduate programs including a Master of Business Administration, Master of Science in Accountancy and Masters of Arts in Management. Our programs are consistently ranked among the world’s best in surveys by U.S. News & World Report, Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Financial Times.