In love and business; how entrepreneurial couples are changing the rules of business and marriage

Nation's Business, Nov, 1986 by Sharon Nelton

In Love And In Business

Veterinarians Raymond Craft and Deborah Dodson, who are married partners as well as business partners, found a creative answer to the sticky question, "Who's in charge here?" They founded two businesses.

The Silver Spring, Md., couple own Petvacx, a mobile veterinary service carried to neighborhoods in vans, and Petcorner, which wholesales veterinary pharmaceuticals. Craft is president of Petvacx and Dodson is vice president; they switch roles for Petcorner.

Although they say neither is each other's boss, they have learned they must divide responsibilities according to their strengths and weaknesses. Until they did so, says Craft, working together "was chaotic."

Like Dodson and Craft, other husbands and wives or live-togethers find that when they join each other in business, they must navigate a minefield of volatile issues: Who's the boss? Who gets what title and makes what decisions? Who does what? Who gets paid what?

In other words, couples in business together or couples who are considering becoming business partners have to figure out how to share the workload, power and rewards of their enterprises. A look at successful entrepreneurial couples around the country shows they have found a wide variety of ways to divvy up the labor and the spoils. Some examples:

* Massimo and Lella Vignelli are co-owners of Vignelli Associates, a prestigious New York design firm with credits ranging from Bloomingdale's shopping bags to church interiors. Massimo is president and Lella is executive vice president. They get equal salaries. An account once suggested that Lella's salary be lower than her husband's; that's one reason why they no longer use that accountant.

While they are both involved in design, Lella handles the finances. The Vignellis have 35 employees, and Lella is generally perceived as the "office boss" while Massimo is seen as the "design boss."

* In 1985, Lorraine Mecca and her husband, Geza Csige, resigned from Micro D, the Santa Ana, Calif., computer distributorship they had started in the late 1970s. Micro D is a public company, and documents indicate that Mecca, vice chairman and CEO, received $121,215 in direct compensation for the 1984 fiscal year. Her husband, who was chairman, does not show up on a list of executives with direct compensation of $60,000 or more.

Furthermore, Mecca owned 51 percent of the common stock while Csige owned none. Mecca was the public figure for the company, but some observers characterize Csige as the power behind the throne.

* Robert Guccione and his longtime companion Kathy Keeton run Penthouse International, Ltd., the corporation that publishes Penthouse, Omni and other magazines. Guccione, the chairman, is the creative force behind the company, but Keeton, vice chairman, is its hands-on manager. While Guccione works at home on Manhattan's Upper East Side in what company news releases, describe, quite correctly, as their "palatial" townhouse, Keeton spends her days at corporate headquarters on Broadway.

Despite her power, Keeton does not have ownership in Penthouse International. The company is in Guccione's name and Keeton, who receives a salary, is, he says, "well paid." She is part owner of the renowned art collection housed in their home. It includes works by Botticelli, Gaugin, van Gogh, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso and Modigliani, and Guccione estimates its value at $20 million.

If Guccione were to die, the company would continue to be administered by Keeton, and ownership would be shared equally by her and his five children. Guccione describes Keeton as "heavily protected" both financially and in terms of her position in the company.

Family business consultants and couples themselves say the way a couple shares responsibilities and rewards affects whether or not a company and the personal relationship run smoothly. Raymond Craft says that when he and Deborah Dodson started their veterinary practice in 1982, they were engaged to be married and "too much in love to conceive of any 'difficulties' between us that the business might cause." But they found that operating a business put a lot of stress on their marriage.

"The natural reaction is to try to control situations for favorable outcome," says Craft. "In controlling, all too often you step on the other person. The end result is damage to your personal relationship."

But conflict is a fact of life. "It's a question of how do we manage conflict, not how do we avoid it," says Stephen B. Swartz of Hubler/Swartz and Associates, a Minneapolis management consulting firm specializing in family businesses.

Swartz and his partner, Thomas M. Hubler, advise a couple to agree to a set of plans that will provide a framework in which to conduct their business. Such plans establish rules and clarify issues, enabling a couple to proceed with other decisions without power struggles and unnecessary conflict.

According to Swartz, this framework should cover ownership and organization structure of the company, business objectives, and such operational items as who will make what decisions, compensation and even the kind and frequency of meetings. (Swartz contends that meetings help a couple make decisions in a more businesslike fashion and keep the business from "bleeding" into their personal life.)