Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Told from the viewpoint of four generations of the Gentine family, TREATED LIKE FAMILY reveals the secrets that enable Sargento Cheese to become an industry leader and provides entrepreneurs with key managerial strategies that will help them succeed in business and life.
Leonard Gentine operated a financially challenged mortuary business for 16 years. Yet, by the time he died, he stood at the helm of Sargento Foods Inc.-a profitable, nationally recognized cheese company and a household name. How does one go from a struggling funeral director to a competitive force in the natural cheese category? TREATED LIKE FAMILY is that full, untold story. Leonard believed in a simple philosophy: Hire good people and treat them like family. Yet that belief, admittedly foundational to the company, proved to be only one of many tenets underlying his success. It is the story of Sargento but also of its employees who, empowered by the Gentine family, took a vision and nurtured it into a formidable company.
Told from the viewpoint of the four generations of the Gentine family, the narrative is based on over 150 interviews-the collective voices of the company's employees, retirees and friends. This is an unvarnished portrait of Sargento, its management and the trials leading to its influential place in the cheese industry.
Within the pages of this story lie key concepts for others seeking to replicate Leonard Gentine's entrepreneurial success: the importance of a corporate culture based on the value of its employees, servant leadership and the belief that a company's ownership is not narrowly defined to its shareholders or by its products. It is a stakeholder-ownership philosophy that encompasses the company's employees, customers, suppliers and the community in which it operates, all of which become all-inclusive in Leonard's eventual definition of "family."
Synopsis
At the age of nineteen, high school diploma in hand, Leonard Gentine knew two things: he wanted to own a family business that would pass from generation to generation, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Dolores Becker, a girl he'd met on a blind date.
For Leonard, life didn't prove that simple.
This biography, told from the viewpoint of four generations of the Gentine family, places the reader in Leonard's shoes as he advances from young man to old age and discovers life's foundational lessons. Along the way, he endures outstanding debts, disappointments, and a collection of small businesses, all with Dolores at his side. It's an inspirational story of perseverance, personal integrity, and a mind-set of always doing the right thing-as painful as that may be in the short term.
TREATED LIKE FAMILY details the development of Sargento-a nationally recognized cheese company and household name. At the same time, it's a timeless story that showcases the importance of the individual and how a family united in a single purpose within the right culture is unstoppable.
Tom Faley invites the reader into the lives of the Gentine family and the men and women they hired, deftly weaving a story grounded in over 180 interviews-the collective voices of the company's employees, retirees, and friends.
TREATED LIKE FAMILY offers a rare glimpse into the creative mind of an innovator and entrepreneur and underscores the rewards for all of us when we maintain our humanity toward one another: When one person motivates others to pull together, at times facing unspeakable odds, he is able not only to change their lives but to alter history.