Evergreen Journal by Tugboat Institute

This Tugboat Institute ® podcast spotlights Stella Ma—entrepreneur, educator and CEO. With a vision to inspire children to learn about the world, Stella and her business partner, Amy Norman, launched Little Passports in 2009. Her passion to make travel accessible, geography fun and spark the imagination of children has created a thriving education subscription business and household brand name tha...

Pushing your sales territory outward is key for sustained business growth. But it's not as easy as it sounds. Each market entry presents its own set of unique complexities. The decisions you make to navigate those challenges will determine your ROI in that territory. In this podcast from Tugboat Institute ®, Gary Kunkle, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Founder of...

Be a better leader. Retired Commander Rorke Denver ran every phase of training for the U.S. Navy SEALs and led special-forces missions in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and other international hot spots. He also wrote two New York Times bestselling books based on his extensive military experience. In this Tugboat Institute podcast, Rorke shares two significant leadership lessons that have...

How can my business be an effective family enterprise if my children do not want to be a part of it? Who will be the next generation of owners? In this podcast from Tugboat Institute ®, Jennifer Pendergast—eminent thought leader and Executive Director of the John L. Ward Center for Family Enterprises at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University—deconstructs the challenges faced by fa...

Central States Manufacturing started in 1988 as a small plant in Rogers, Arkansas. Today the company produces metal roofing and siding for thousands of customers from 10 locations across the country. It is also 100% employee owned. John Williams, VP of Sales & Marketing, shared with the Tugboat Institute® in 2016 the keys to the company's tremendous success—a strict adherence to open-book manageme...

Get Big Fast vs. Evergreen—Which is the best fit for your business? This episode features Tugboat Institute ® CEO Dave Whorton. When Dave was recruited by the legendary John Doerr to work for Kleiner Perkins in 1997 he learned the original venture capital (VC) "playbook"—a strategy focused on reaching profitability and sustained growth. At the same time, Doerr and other partners were selectively e...

This episode features John Garrett, CEO of Community Impact Newspaper. According to John, "Print ain't dead, " and he should know. An experienced newspaper executive, John could see where the industry was headed but he also saw a huge need. Despite living in a digitized world with content just a click away, John saw that people were yearning to know what was happening in their own backyards. So in...

What defines an effective workplace? Can productive work only occur in the office?   In this podcast from Tugboat Institute ®, Lisa Picard, President and CEO of EQ Office , discusses the challenges that are facing employers and employees in the modern workplace. As the leader of a commercial real estate company with a mission to design spaces to maximize human potential, Lisa shares the 4 vital co...

Why does this almost 100-year-old company still act like a scrappy startup? It was 2009. The financial crisis was in full swing and consumer spending had dropped off a cliff. Torani, a family-owned syrup company established in 1925, had been growing at 25% per year for over 18+ years. CEO Melanie Dulbecco was now facing growth rate projections of 4% and stiff competition from giant corporations co...

This episode features Bart Ricketts, CEO of  Lease Crutcher Lewis . In this talk from Tugboat Institute Gathering of Teams 2021, Bart shares how this Pacific Northwest construction company established in 1886 continues to innovate through employee led improvement programs, paced growth and an environment that cultivates a diversity of thought and experience. Learn how this  Evergreen ® company is...

This episode features Grant Gregory, the retired chairman of Deloitte & Touche and founder of DoubleClick. In his Tugboat Institute® talk, Grant describes how Don Clifton, his longtime mentor and the creator of StrengthsFinder, taught him the principles of positive psychology and the practice of strengths-based leadership that allowed him to expertly recruit and develop talent across complex organ...

As a film producer and President of Flashlight Films,  Allyn Stewart , has mastered the process of developing compelling stories and translating them into captivating films. In this talk from Tugboat Institute® , Allyn shares her journey through Hollywood and her philosophy that true excellence in storytelling comes from the creator's unwavering commitment and unshakable belief in the story they w...

How do I use the wealth that I have created? What should I give my children? What will be my legacy – in business and life? In this Tugboat Institute® talk from 2016, Dennis Jaffe of Wise Counsel Research, answers these questions and more. As part of a special study, Dennis spent years interviewing members of family-owned companies that generate great wealth, while also making a difference the wor...

In this episode you will meet Mel Gravely, CEO of TriVersity Construction Company based in Cincinnati, Ohio. As a successful black business leader, Mel admits to sidestepping the topic of race – especially with his white friends and colleagues. However with the civil unrest and waves of protests that occurred in the summer of 2020, Mel could no longer ignore the topic. 

In her Tugboat Institute Summit 2016 talk, Founder Amy Simmons, shares her passion for creating an empowered culture built on training, transparency, and financial literacy. With a workforce full of teammates ranging in age from 16 - 20 years old, Amy is dedicated to educating the next generation of business leaders and showing them, by example, the powerful impact of an Evergreen company.

In this presentation to Tugboat Institute in 2021, Brad offers his insights on customer expectations in today's world, key ways to improve service interactions and guidance on how to successfully utilize the customer experience to grow your business. We hope you enjoy the practical advice along with the lessons learned by some of the largest companies in the United States.

Lester Thornhill, CEO of  Life's Abundance , approached the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic with a commitment to continuous improvement. In this talk from Tugboat Institute Gathering of Teams 2021, Lester shares his story of opportunistic innovation through the pandemic, offering a compelling case for seizing upon moments of challenge to strengthen the team and the company for the long term.

In the 1950s, Earl and Carol Holding moved to the Wyoming desert to take over a failing gas station/motel/cafe. That was the first step toward building what Tim Silva calls an "incredible empire" that includes Sun Valley Resort, the home base for Tugboat Summit and Sinclair Oil Corp. Silva, the resort's general manager, says the Holding family used core Evergreen principles to grow their assets.

Robyn Sue has spent the last 13 years (since 2007!) conceiving of and developing Smitten Ice Cream. In her 'prior life', she was a management consultant in the U.S. and Europe and became known for her ability to invent new ways of solving problems. In her Tugboat Institute Summit 2016 talk, Fisher breaks down what matters most in building her Evergreen business: creating joy for employees and cust...

In today's episode, you'll meet Carrie Freeman Parsons, Chairman of the Board at Freeman Company . Freeman is a global event management company. Carrie shares with us about her lack of skills when assuming her first managing role within Freeman. This lead to her prioritizing leadership development and specifically training new managers with their needed "tools." Carrie noted that it's essential fo...

Viesturs has been climbing mountains for almost 40 years. In that time, he has climbed all of the world's 8,000-plus-meter summits — 14 in total — without using oxygen tanks. Viesturs embodies one of the most important elements of an Evergreen entrepreneur: perseverance. It took Viesturs 21 attempts to complete his 14-summit bucket list. For each of those climbs, he vowed not to break the rules th...

In times of rapid change and chaos, there's often no playbook for leaders faced with solving complex problems. In this talk from Tugboat Institute Gathering of Teams 2021, Everett Harper, CEO of software development company Truss, offers insight into a framework he developed to create a pathway for decision making and engineer structure amidst uncertainty.

Carl Erickson, Founder and Chairman of Atomic Object, had spent 18 years building his Evergreen® company—after a career as an academic—when he realized he had come to a pivotal moment in his life. What he did next significantly impacted his business and his personal well-being.