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Less than 30 percent of family companies survive to the second generation, according to Family Business magazine, and just 10 percent make it to the third.
Statistics for companies such as Bleckman Machine and Supply Inc. of Washington, Mo., are harder to come by. The 167-year-old machinery shop has been in the Bleckman family for six generations.
Founded in 1834 by German immigrant John Bleckman, the company has evolved from a blacksmith shop and plow maker to a machinery supply and repair shop. Its principal business today is the selling of parts and supplies for heavy industrial equipment, such as those used in quarries and foundries, and the repair of industrial heavy machinery and equipment. Of the company's 10 employees, nine of them hail from four different families of the Bleckman clan, all with the last name Bleckman.
Sound confusing? Well it is and it isn't, said 67-year-old Maurice Bleckman, the company's shop foreman and former president. All nine Bleckmans employed by the business are...