Aaron Smith sees his role at Vermeer, a global manufacturer of industrial and agricultural equipment based in Pella, Iowa, as building intergenerational relationships: He is using family education and the family’s annual camp to help guide the family through generational transitions — and he himself is a second-generation nonfamily employee of the family office.
Smith, who has been with Vermeer for three years as senior family office manager, leads a team of three staff members who handle everything from family education to the administrative aspects of the family’s charitable foundation. Smith is the primary liaison with outside advisors who help in areas like estate planning and financial planning.
He is also the go-to person for any question one of the more than 80 family members has: how one family member can make an edit to a living trust, for example, or how another who owns farmland can buy crop insurance.
“Every day by 10 a.m., it generally is not what I expected to deal with, but it’s fun,” Smith says.
The Vermeer family office is embedded in the company. Although the family office staff have their own space, it is in the corporate building, and the family office staff members are employees of the company.
The family office has become more formal over the years as both the family and the business have expanded — in numbers and geographically. Ryan Agre, who shares the CFO role on the business side, continues to oversee the family office, but with Smith’s arrival he spends less time on day-to-day family office operations.
In the coming years, the business will continue to grow, and the family will likely grow alongside it. Already, a majority of them do not live near the main campus in Pella. Smith is building relationships with and among family members with this in mind.
Focus on family education
Family education is a major focus for the family office, with programs both for the rising generation and for intergenerational groups of family members.
“Probably upwards of 50% of the content that we work with on a daily basis is education-related,” Smith says.
They provide education for family members as they turn 18 and are notified that they are a trust beneficiary, or when they get to the age where they are taking over ownership of trust assets.
“We have implemented a curriculum on what it means to be a beneficiary that ties in the biggest piece: understanding the stewardship mindset and connecting that to the legacy of what it means to be a Vermeer family member,” Smith says.
To make sure NextGen family members understand the business, the family office facilitates summer employment, which 10 NextGen family members recently took part in. They also offer a two-day mini-camp tied to the annual family camp where 14- and 15-year-olds can learn about different areas of the business.
One recent successful innovation has been training on trusts and other financial topics for an intergenerational cohort of 10 family members.
“The biggest benefit that I have seen hasn’t been the hard data or the details of being a beneficiary — it has been the intergenerational dialogue,” Smith says. “Some of the older family members shared how they learned about a particular trust and said that when they were younger, they didn’t know how to ask these questions. Creating that safe space for them to discuss that topic has been invaluable.”
Two members of this first cohort spoke at the annual family camp about their experience, generating interest in future sessions from additional family members.
Family camp bonding
The annual family camp has traditionally been a time for teaching family members about the machinery the company manufactures: “understanding the work we are doing, how that connects to the environment, how it connects to our dealer structure,” Smith says.
But the three-day camp is also one of the only times that many of the family members see their extended family.
“That has created a need to focus more on the relationship aspect,” Smith says.
Last year, for the first time, family camp was held outside of Pella, at a company facility in South Carolina.
“Everybody had the same experience, which was an eye-opening experience for those from Pella,” Smith says. They added more social activities, including a pickleball tournament, outdoor activities such as fishing or biking, and other events that facilitated intergenerational interaction.
“I think we recognized that family camp doesn’t have to be completely business-oriented time to be productive,” Smith says. “There is value in building those relationships and taking the time necessary to be intentional in that.”
Those intentional relationship-building times included two coffee hours, one for men who married in to the family and another for married-in women.
“We had carved out 45 minutes for this,” Smith says. “We could have had it go on for three and a half hours, and it probably wouldn’t have been enough time. This was something that I don’t know if the family knew they needed. But when we curated it, in an intentional fashion, it led to an a-ha moment.”
A second-generation employee
For Smith, this job is something of a homecoming. His father served as Vermeer’s general counsel for 27 years, and for part of that time, he performed family office functions. Smith grew up in Pella and knew many of the family members — and they knew him.
“I think it immediately helped me get to a place of credibility and understanding that is hard to replicate,” Smith says.
This trust and familiarity went both ways.
“I knew who the family was. I knew how they treated my father, how they care about the community, how they care about team members,” Smith says. “Immediately, I was able to trust them.”
However, the reality was that Smith did not know 75% of the family members.
“I’m a generally curious person, so I spent the first six months going around and visiting the family,” Smith says. His message was that this was their family office, and he wanted to be helpful in whatever ways he could. “For some people, that looked different than others. I serve all the family, not just those that are here, or those that are in the business.”
Still, his knowledge of Pella and the family has been helpful.
“It was helpful for me to kind of innately understand some of the relationships that you’re going to see in a smaller community,” Smith says. “I also know how involved the family has been in the community in different ways, whether that’s the charitable piece, direct investments or just how they conduct themselves. And I know how they care for people — that was something I knew about because I had lived it.”