![]() ![]() Generation three starts at the same bottom rung as everyone else. “You can’t have a thin skin,” said John Lingo, who remembers starting out at the Lewes office where he sometimes worked as the secretary and the janitor to learn the ropes. It keeps everyone responsible and accountable. Everyone brings his or her own expertise to an idea, as well as history and perspective. Often business discussions are at family dinners where the conversation invariably veers to real estate. Today, decisions are made with a group approach, and are spread out across the family. Generally, the small companies are too dependent on too few people for decisions have poor hiring practices or no guidelines at all have no clear roles, responsibility and accountability, and they don’t look forward with their business analyses.īy Rivers’ standards, the Lingos are practically a textbook case of doing all the right things, with guidelines created by the Colonel. It’s often the same problems, said Rivers, of why small businesses fail in succession from one generation to the next. “Research indicates that failures can essentially be traced to one factor: an unfortunate lack of family-business succession-planning.” Statistics show that about 30 percent of family businesses survive into the second generation with only 12 percent going into the third. That is a good thing, said Wayne Rivers, CEO of the Family Business Institute. “And always will be,” said John Lingo.Īlthough the Lingos joked that they expected the Colonel to be there forever, he took very planned steps to make sure the transition from one generation to the next was smooth. His mailbox in the office and chair at the board table are still there. His work ethic and influence were a major factor right up until his death in November 2015. His agency was open on holidays and in snowstorms, and no phone call request was too early or too late. The family motto to this day is, don’t go into real estate unless you’re ready to go full-time. However, he did welcome them, as they slowly, over years, joined him. He encouraged them to get good educations and careers they’d love. His four boys, John, 70, Bill, 65, Bryce, 63, and Derrick, 51, who run the company now, say their father didn’t start the business to build a dynasty. “The biggest compliment the Colonel ever gave me, he called to ask my expertise,” said Pat Campbell-White, a competing agent who has been in the Rehoboth real estate scene longer than the Lingos. His business grew as did the respect other agents had for him. He saw the potential in his hometown and was rewarded as the building boom of the 80’s and 90’s brought in a steady influx of new people wanting their piece of the Sussex County dream. It was a quieter resort back then with barely two good pizza restaurants and locals still talking about the storm of ’62 that practically washed the whole place to sea. John “Jack” “The Colonel” Lingo, started the company in 1974 after retiring from the Air Force as, yes, a colonel, and moving back home to Rehoboth – the family homestead since the 1600’s. They look out for each other, the business and everyone who works there as if they are all family. That bond is the number-one reason the family members give of why their company, Jack Lingo Realty, has survived as a family-run business and not been sold off or absorbed into a national company. She retells the childhood story as one of her fondest memories and an example of the bond of the Lingo family. Now at 36, she is a former Olympic athlete who turned down several big name university coaching opportunities to go into the family real estate business. ![]() They would discuss the day for both of them while she sampled from his drawer full of M&M’s and peanut butter crackers. From left: Jack Jr., Lillie, Derrick, John, Bill, Murray Padgett, Carrie Lingo comprise the “Lingo” part of the business, which has been around since 1974//Photos by Maria DeForrest.Ĭarrie Lingo used to stop by her grandfather’s Rehoboth office every day on her way home from elementary school in the 1980’s. ![]()
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