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Mentoring Part of New Trend in Business Succession Planning

Mike Switzer

 

Many small businesses grapple with succession...who should take over the business if the owner should pass away, become disabled, or just ready to retire.  There's a new trend in dealing with this issue that involves the owner selling the business to someone, oftentimes a young person, who is being mentored by the founder, who agrees to stay on for a few years in an advisory capacity.  This is exactly what has happened recently with an architecture firm in Charleston.

Mike Switzer interviews Wally Seinsheimer, the original founder of Dolphin Architects and Builders and Christopher Ibsen, the new owner.

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After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.