Handing Off Your Baby Isn't Easy - Or Simple, Experts Say

Blood, sweat and tears; late nights and weekends spent working; sacrificed vacations and family time - indeed, a CEO's feelings toward his or her business often mirror those of a parent has for a child.

Unfortunately, when it comes time to take the next step in life, the gravity of letting their baby go can prove overwhelming, say Kathleen Richardson-Mauro and Jane M. Johnson, two business owners who specialize in helping CEOs plan and execute their business ownership transitions.

"Successful business owners tend to pore over every detail in order to improve the venture; but what they often overlook is the fact that, like parents to a child, they will someday have to allow that baby to move on," says Johnson, co-author with Richardson-Mauro of a practical new guide, "Cashing Out of Your Business," and complementary website of self-help resources, Business Transition Academy (www.BusinessTransitionAcademy.com.)

"As business owners, we've both experienced difficult transitions professionally and personally," Richardson-Mauro says. "So many CEOs, rather than dealing with the reality of their business' future without them, carry on as if nothing will change." 

Richardson-Mauro and Johnson, both Certified Merger & Acquisition Advisors and Business Exit Consultants, say there are a number of measures owners can take to ensure the transition is smooth and they have what they need to be happy on the other side of it.

• Change is natural; learn to accept it with regard to your business. If you're like most owners, you have invested some or most of the best years of your life, and most of your financial resources, in your business. By now, your identity and that of the business may now actually be one and the same. Take heart: Now is the time to focus on your other passions, which may be family, traveling, catching up on reading, fitness and so much more. Consider your next act as a rebirth of you.

• Learn to count beans - outside of your business. Now is the time to take stock of the assets you've saved outside of the business and determine how much income you'll need post-transition. Then, calculate how much money you'll need to receive from the ownership transition. Most owners are not independently wealthy without their business; most need to extract money from their companies to fund the rest of their lives. The more a business profits, the more owners tend to spread the wealth to family members, or ratchet up spending in other ways. Be realistic about how you want your money to be spent in the next phase.

• Is your business transitioning "in-house"? Small businesses - those with less than 500 employees - are responsible for nearly half of the GDP and employment in the United States. Many of these are family-run enterprises; naturally, owners often want to keep it in the family, which doesn't always work out. Often, parents want to distribute evenly to their sons and daughters, even though only one was actually active in the business. Attempts to be "fair" can cause businesses to crumble, with an absentee owner trying to call the same shots as someone who's always there. Be honest about what will actually be good for the business and its employees.

About Kathleen Richardson-Mauro

Kathleen Richardson-Mauro, CFP, CBEC, CM&AA, CBI, has owned and operated five small companies and has successfully assisted more than 150 business owners in achieving their transition goals.

About Jane Johnson

Jane Johnson, CPA, CBEC, CM&AA, owned her own business, which she exited successfully in 2007. She has been providing advisory services to business owners on how to plan and execute successful ownership transitions since that time. In 2010, Jane received the Excellence in Exit Planning Achievement Award from Pinnacle Equity Solutions.

Quad Cities:  Adults and children alike will be entertained with the exciting exhibition schedule at three Quad Cities' area museums.  Glass artists have created beautiful landscapes and playful creations to see.  Glass spheres and weather balloons reveal interesting worlds.  Children can build amazing inventions, take fun-filled adventures with Dora and Diego, and engage in new environments focusing on engineering, technology and science.

The Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa, takes you into the beautiful world of glass blowing and glass sculpture with three exhibits including: Kids Design Glass; Katja Loher: Videoplanet - Orchestra; and Roman Glass Works.

Kids Design Glass began as an education program at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington.  Master Glass artists from the museum's HotShop selected drawings of mythical monsters by children in local schools and, with the children's help, transformed the drawings into glass sculptures that combine youthful imagination with the pristine beauty of art glass.  This traveling exhibition features 52 glass sculptures, along with the original drawings that inspired them.  The exhibition runs through May 4, 2014.

Katja Loher: Videoplanet - Orchestra features Swiss video artist Katja Loher as she combines performance art, music and dance to create a dynamic installation that questions the balance between humans, nature and technology.  Instead of using the conventional monitor or wall projection, she projects her videos onto the surfaces of weather balloons hanging from the gallery space and from within glass bubbles mounted on the walls. 

Visitors enter a darkened gallery space to experience a magical universe. Filmed from a high vantage point, these videos offer visitors a chance to peer into a series of mini or micro-worlds in which costumed dancers form letters that compose words and sentences to post simple, though-provoking questions.  In other sequences, dancers take the shape of floral arrangements or recreate the inner workings of a timepiece.

Each tiny "universe" in the exhibition provides an elaborate commentary on big issues.  Her video - Why Did the Bees Leave? - metaphorically details the intricate relationship between man and nature by using the Colony Collapse Disorder that has killed millions of bees across the country.  Using live actors, Loher creates a tiny world of man-bees that has been videotaped and projected onto a glass sphere.  The entire installation will offer viewers an unforgettable experience of a world of microcosms and macrocosms that rival the works of the great 17^thcentury painter, Hieronymous Bosch.  The exhibition will be on view through May 4.

Step into a glass floor-to-ceiling landscape and be enchanted.  Landscape: Ingalena Klenell and Beth Lipman, on loan to the Figge Art Museum from the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, amazes visitors as a curtain of sculpted and fused clear glass forms a beautiful landscape that was originally the centerpiece of a three-part installation entitled Glimmering Gone.

Landscape is a collaboration between Ingalena Klenell of Sweden and Beth Lipman of Wisconsin. The two artists were inspired by Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943), a painter from Tacoma, who painted grand American landscapes in the tradition of Albert Bierstadt.  Landscape seeks to recreate the sense of wonder found in Hill's paintings. Using transparent glass for their installation, Lipman and Klenell emphasize the romanticism inherent in 19th century landscapes, as well as the fragility of nature as we understand it today. Their use of glass as a "painting" material bears comparison to the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, while the misty landscape can resemble a Chinese brush painting or a Midwestern scene on a winter day.  The exhibition runs from February 15 through May 24.

Step back in time to ancient Rome and explore the art of ancient Roman glassblowing through vessels from the collections of Augustana College and the Putnam Museum during Roman Glass Works.  Western Illinois University students from the Museum Studies Graduate Program contributed to layout, educational, and interactive components of this exhibition which creates a context that connects the history of glassmaking from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day.  The exhibition complements and ties together the other glass exhibits at the Figge Art Museum and highlights beautiful works from ancient Rome.  The exhibit runs from February 22 through May 20.

The Figge Art Museum is located at 225 W. 2^nd Street, Davenport, IA. For more information visit their website www.figgeartmuseum.org or call 563-326-7804. 

Both adults and children will be inspired and entertained by the exhibits at the Figge Art Museum, but be sure to also stop at the Family Museum in Bettendorf, Iowa.  The museum features all new permanent exhibits and the traveling exhibit Nickelodeon's Dora and Diego - Let's Explore.  

Enter the enchanting world of Dora the Explorer, her animal-rescuing cousin Diego and their friends Boots and Baby Jaguar at the museum's upcoming exhibit, Nickelodeon's Dora and Diego?Let's Explore! Visitors can explore Isa's Flowery Garden, help Tico gather nuts, set sail with the Pirate Piggies' crew, and search for baby animals in the Rainforest Maze.  Also journey to the Purple Planet via a rocket ship, and learn how to care for baby animals in the Animal Rescue Center.  The 3,000 square feet exhibit is perfect for preschool children 2 to 5 years of age.  The exhibit is scheduled to open May 24 and ends August 31.  

The ThinkShop is a new, permanent exhibit at the Family Museum where families and children use real tools in a supervised setting to build one-of-a-kind inventions in a highly-interactive, hands-on space.  Through the use of real building materials and recycled components, kids can bring ideas to life.   

The ThinkShop is part of a multi-million dollar rebuild of the museum's permanent exhibit halls that includes the new Lil'Ssippi River Valley indoor waterplay area and Fox Hollow Town Square and Farm Fox Hollow. 

The Family Museum is located at 2900 Learning Campus Drive, Bettendorf, IA.  For more information visit www.familymuseum.org or call 563-344-4106.

2014 is also a great time to visit the Putnam Museum in Davenport, Iowa, where fun and learning can be had for all ages!  Don't miss CSI: The Experience available March 1 through July 6 at the Putnam Museum. This traveling exhibit immerses guests in hands-on science while leading them through the challenge of solving a crime. The exhibit brings to life fundamental scientific principles, numerous scientific disciplines, and the most advanced technology and techniques used today by crime scene investigators and forensic scientists. Through hands-on activities with real equipment, as well as multi-media presentations, guests will sample the following science fields and understand their role in cracking crimes: DNA, Toxicology, Forensic anthropology, entomology, pathology, Forensic art, Firearm and Toolmark identification, Latent prints, and Blood Spatter analysis. CSI: The Experience is an immersive, interactive forensic science exhibit based on the hit TV series that invites people to use real science to solve hypothetical crimes in an exciting multi-media environment featuring guidance from the CBS show's characters.

On display February 15 through May 18, Bittersweet Harvest, a bilingual (English/Spanish) exhibition on loan from the Smithsonian, explores the little-known story of the Bracero program; the largest guest worker program in U.S history. Between 1942 and 1964, millions of Mexican men were invited to the U.S. on short-term labor contracts. This exhibition is organized into three main sections that explore the Braceros' motivations and expectations for the journey north, the work they did, and the effects the Bracero program had on family and communities in Mexico and the U.S. "Bittersweet Harvest" features the work of famed photojournalist Leonard Nadel as well as oral histories collected by the Bracero Oral History Project.

Other big news at the Putnam Museum is the new STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) Science Center, l opening  April 12, 2014. Plans are well underway to re-purpose one-third of the museum into an active and engaging environment focusing on engineering, technology and the sciences.  The new exhibit will include more than 45 hands-on experiences for all ages such as the Pull-Yourself-Up Pulley, specially designed robots that interact with visitors, a FAB Lab with 3D Printers and real-time connection to FAB Labs around the globe; Laser Fog and much more.  Local businesses, such as Genesis Systems Group, LLC; Cobham; Shive-Hattery and Deere & Company are working with the Putnam Museum to develop one-of-a-kind visitor experiences that cannot be found at any other museum or science center. 

Beyond exhibits, the Putnam Museum offers a wealth of exciting movies at the National Geographic Giant Screen Theater that include : Rocky Mountain Express 3D through February 6;Jerusalem 3D through March 20; Titans of the Ice Age 3D February 7 - July 31; Mysteries of the Unseen World April 12 - August 31; Earth Wins March 21 - May 22.

The Putnam Museum is located at 1717 W. 12th Street, Davenport, IA.  For more information, please visit www.putnam.org or call 563-324-1933.

For information on the Quad Cities area, call the Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau at800-747-7800 or visit their website at www.visitquadcities.com. The Quad Cities is located on the Mississippi River and is made up of the riverfront cities of Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa; and Moline, East Moline and Rock Island in Illinois.  The area is just a 2-½ hour drive from Des Moines, Iowa, and Chicago, Illinois. It is easily accessible via I-80, I-74, I-88 and several major state highways.

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Ruth Fenner Barash's new book, "For Better or Worse: Lurching from Crisis to Crisis in America's Medical Morass," reveals a medical system gone haywire, a system that's become a nightmare for sick and elderly Americans and their loved ones.

Her cautionary tale traces the long death of her husband, Philip, through a medical journey she says was fraught with mismanagement and excess, useless interventions and a sometimes complete disregard for pain - even when there was no hope of healing.

The Barashes were a long-married couple who tried to keep their heads above the quicksand of illness. Amidst the welter of statistics and cost analyses, their ordeal is a critical and moving look at a medical system that prioritizes itself above its patients.

Barash shares the deeply personal story of a man who, not through his own choice, overused the medical system, resulting in a long, slow death. She laments the state of our wildly expensive MD/hospital/Big Pharma complex, which all too often creates additional suffering for patients and their families.

"Patients and their loved ones cannot blindly turn themselves over to this massive, technology-based system and trust that it will care - or take care of them," says Barash, who adds that she had always expected much more from America's medical system.

"We did experience some wonderful health-care professionals - brilliant, compassionate and helpful doctors and nurses - but they were not the rule. I learned a great deal from our experience, and with so many people now gaining access to health care, I want others to benefit from what I've learned.

"You can navigate the system; you just have to know how. Above all, you have the power to say No."

Each one of us has a stake in advocating for a better health-care system; one that puts the emphasis on the patient and not gratuitous tests, mysterious technology or complicated insurance plans, she says. Until we get to that point as a nation, she says there are many things patients and their families can do to improve the medical experience, including avoiding the emergency room whenever possible, being skeptical and questioning everything, and asking about the costs - no matter who's paying.

About Ruth Fenner Barash

Ruth Fenner Barash studied philosophy at City College of New York and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. In 1958, she met and married Philip Barash, a private practice attorney. She went on to work in public relations and real estate, served on education and civic boards, and taught art in various media. Her long marriage was a "harmonious adventure" despite the couple's treacherous journey through the health-care system. Her husband died in 2012.

DES MOINES, IA (01/27/2014)(readMedia)-- From ferris wheels, food on a stick and free entertainment, to premier livestock events, expansive art exhibits and the country's largest state fair food department, the Iowa State Fair has something for everyone. This year, Iowans can show their love for the Iowa State Fair on their tax returns and help the Fair continue to preserve the allure of the historic Fairgrounds.

Look for the State Fairgrounds Renovation Check Off on line 58b of Iowa Tax Form 1040 or on line 14 of Iowa Tax Form 1040A and check off $1 (or more!) to help preserve the historic Iowa State Fairgrounds. Your gift is either deducted from your refund or added to the amount due. Contributions to the Corndog Checkoff are fully tax-deductible.

"The Corndog Checkoff is a great and easy way for Iowans to support the Iowa State Fair. The Iowa State Fair would not be what it is today without the Corndog Checkoff. Thank you to thousands of Iowans who have supported the Corndog Checkoff in the past and we hope you will consider doing so again this year to preserve this great institution for future generations," said Blue Ribbon Foundation Executive Director Peter Cownie.

Every dollar donated to the Checkoff is directly allocated to capital improvements. The Corndog Checkoff has raised over $1.7 million, and has supplemented restoration projects from the Grandstand to the newly air conditioned Cultural Center. In addition, funds generated by the Checkoff have helped improve the campgrounds, parking areas, sidewalks and restrooms.

The Iowa State Fair Blue Ribbon Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. Since its inception in 1993, the Foundation has generated over $95 million for renovations and improvements to the Iowa State Fairgrounds. For more information on the Corndog Tax Checkoff, please contact the Blue Ribbon Foundation at (800) 450-3732 or emailinfo@blueribbonfoundation.org.

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