After four decades of ownership, Tom Pepin sold Pepin Distributing in 2021. He had purchased the beverage distributor in 1981 following 20 years of ownership by his father and had grown the company from one supplier to 80, and from 140 employees to 350. Now the Pepin family is starting a new chapter — forming the Pepin Family Office and hiring Tom Lee, former president of the Florida State Senate, to lead it. Tom Pepin; his daughter Tina Pepin, executive director of the Pepin Family Foundation; and Tom Lee, the incoming leader of the family office, discuss the origins and goals of the family office:
Why did you decide to form a family office?
Tom Pepin: After the exit from our business, we needed to create an entity that was in the business of investing the proceeds. On top of that, we have estate planning to take care of. We have a reputation in the community of corporate citizenship that we want to maintain.
We are very new — we’re learning as we go. I’m a hands-on type of person, so we want to take an active position in managing and overseeing investments rather than just going to the stock market.
How many family members will the family office serve?
Tom Pepin: That’s a good question. I have six children. I also have three siblings, and they have their offspring. Hopefully, one day it will be the same whether it is my grandchild, or whether it’s my brother: If they have bona fide business opportunities that they bring to the family office, then we consider them and we fund them if we deem it appropriate. We haven’t gotten there yet.
Why was Tom Lee chosen to lead the family office?
Tom Pepin: I will say that I was not looking. It’s like when you finally find that person you want to get married to and boom — it hits you in the face.
Tom and I have known each other for 25 years through many of his businesses and political exploits. I needed the mentoring, and the scale of my investments was getting to where I needed some advice. Tom just happened to be there at the right time.
Tom Lee: Tom and I have known each other a long time. I’ve watched his kids grow up, and I spent my life separately in the real estate development business. I also spent 20 years in the Senate here in Florida, so Tom and I have had some political interactions as well.
Timing is everything in life, right? About the time Tom was selling his business, I was selling my interest in the company. My wife had run successfully for Congress. I had some free time and was really thinking about reinventing myself. Tom was also being forced to reinvent himself.
To me this was a great opportunity to help the family continue its legacy in the community and, in some unique way, continue my service to the community through helping them. So, it was kind of a perfect fit for me.
What will Tom Lee’s role be?
Tom Pepin: Tom brings a wealth of knowledge, not only in homebuilding and in the political world — he is somebody who can help me navigate the areas that I’m not familiar with. He is mentoring both Tina and me in the process of branching out.
Tom Lee: I have a unique set of skills for someone in this position. I spent time in investment portfolio management and finance over the years. Our office is extremely well politically connected here in Florida.
We’re able to do business-to-business introductions, business-to-government introductions. We’re a great partner for people doing business here in the Tampa Bay area and hope to be able to leverage some of those things to benefit the family over time, as they continue to manage the resources that Tom has generated.
Why is it important to use the family office to preserve the family culture?
Tom Pepin: My main concern has been maintaining the culture of our family and protecting the values that we have. We need to set up this structure so that it is maintained over the next generation or two.
Tina Pepin: Our work encompasses the values that my grandfather had — giving back to the community was something that we all learned from him. He was given the opportunity to go to college by a family that he served, and from then on, his life was committed to giving to givers. My goal is to ensure the values and mission my father and grandfather have dedicated their lives to is passed on through many generations.
How is the family learning about topics such as the family office, the family culture and financial literacy?
Tom Pepin: As a Christmas present, I gave the family a book, The Psychology of Money, and also a brochure from one of our portfolio managers who gave them access to him and his teaching team.
I also had a book written that is a testimony to my dad’s life and his beliefs, to pass it on to the next generation. That’s the first step of creating a legacy — which is a big part of this family office, is to make sure that the culture is transferred to the next generation.
Tina Pepin: When you’ve got the ability to just get Tom Lee on the phone, it’s stuff that you can’t find in a book. We all share a commitment to the community that we are serving. That is what goes beyond the generation of me and my siblings through the family office. We have access to these high-value individuals in business. And we were able to take financial literacy classes. We are able to approach our board with questions. To have that at our fingertips is truly a blessing.
How is your family office connected to the family’s philanthropy?
Tom Pepin: It’s a legacy that my father started: It was his belief to give back to the community.
Tina Pepin: The trajectory of our legacy will always be in our values. These values are pushed out through our foundation. Right now, public safety is my main priority: mental health and resiliency programs. When there was a nursing crisis in Tampa, we created a program with the University of South Florida that serves young nursing professionals. We partner with the Tampa Police Department for resiliency and officer wellness and a mental health program. The family office gives us the home for these investments, among others that support health care and education, to make a difference.
What are your goals for the family office?
Tom Lee: This family office is a great mechanism to manage the life’s work that the Pepin family has accumulated over time and perpetuate it for future generations — not just the resources, but the culture and the philosophy and the value set that was handed down from Tom’s father to him, and that he would like to hand down to future generations.
When your balance sheet gets complicated and you’re well known in a community, you have a lot of people come to you with business opportunities. We are taught at an early age to invest in things we understand, and sometimes that can be fairly limiting. So, one of the things I think we all hope to do is build out the operation so that we have resources — maybe not so much internally, but consulting resources — that can assist us in underwriting opportunities so that we can make better and more informed decisions.
In politics they teach you: It’s not your enemies that will get you in trouble, it’s your friends. And so you want to try to make sure that as you entertain opportunities, you also have the professional expertise to underwrite them. And it’s one of the things that we’ve been working on.
Tom Pepin: They say 70% of second generations fail and 90% of third generations fail.
The purpose of the family office is to beat those odds.
