It’s fairly common to hear someone say they “grew up in the business” or that a particular industry is “in my blood.” But for Kelly Kirk, who first went to work with her parents at Kirk Fish Company when she was just three days old, it’s literally true.
“Kirk Fish Company was started by my grandparents in the late ’40s. My grandfather was a full-time fisherman and there was no fish house on Goodland for the fishermen,” Kirk says. “My dad grew up and became a commercial fisherman … and once my grandfather and my grandmother passed away, he inherited the fisheries in Goodland. Shortly after that, my mom and dad and I all went back to Goodland together to just be a commercial processor with a small retail shop. Today, the retail side is more prominent than the wholesale side, but the processing side is one of the few places left in this area that actually process fresh, local seafood.”
The Kirk Fish Company is one of many family-owned businesses in Southwest Florida that have carried on through several generations. Some have stayed small, though many now have multiple locations and a few have even expanded across the state, the region and the continent. But the one thread tying them all together is that, while they’ve all weathered changes and growth in the region and beyond, each started simply with hope and a dream.
Finding a Niche
Before heading overseas to serve during World War II, Don Wynn never envisioned returning to Naples to take over the hotel his parents owned at the time. But upon his return, meeting and subsequently marrying a local girl changed all that. Instead, Wynn used a G.I. Bill loan to buy his parents’ hotel, which he later sold to open a grocery store. That ultimately led to what is now known as Sunshine Ace Hardware, according to Michael Wynn, president and Don Wynn’s grandson.
“He built a grocery store on Fifth Avenue, and as that business grew and expanded, he needed a bigger building. He built that across the parking lot … and then rented the old building to a Western Auto Parts dealer. That owner fell on some hard times [and] my grandfather let him out of the lease and took over the business. That eventually became Sunshine Hardware in 1958,” Wynn says. “He had strong customer demand and kept adding more and more hardware items … the basic day-to-day needs of this growing community. Everything he did was based on what he felt was right for the community, and hopefully also made good business sense. Those two businesses were almost foundational elements of any town.”
While Wynn found a successful niche to serve a growing area, it wasn’t his only wise business decision. Joining the Ace Hardware cooperative and becoming Sunshine Ace Hardware gave the company a competitive advantage long before big box stores came to town. And that edge has allowed the chain to grow to 14 locations and more than 500 employees in Southwest Florida, with three more stores opening in 2025. Wynn said his grandfather’s wisest move may have simply been establishing a good business and a good place to work, to build loyalty from both customers and employees.
“My grandfather was always very astute in trying to keep family peace and … he was smart about basically dividing up the family in their respective areas of passion. As the family dynamic grew, people in my generation and others watched how hard the family worked in the business,” he says. “Unlike a lot of other family businesses, where you have a lot of family members that become part of it, they never put that pressure on any of us. They were very clear about the expectations that you will start at the bottom and you will learn all of your positions and they’re going to expect more out of you than anybody else. I like to say that we are a ‘business family’ versus a ‘family business,’ because we recognize the importance of putting the business interest first with the family values as our foundation.”
Growing the Business as a Family
Max Lipman wasn’t happy with his lot in life: working as a peddler in Brooklyn with a single tomato cart in the 1930s. Though he couldn’t read or write, Max did have a knack for numbers, as did his wife, Ella, who handled the family’s finances. Saving extra pennies and nickels, Ella Lipman finally saved up $100 and told her husband it was time to do something on his own. That $100 was the seed money for what would soon become Lipman Family Farms.
“I like to say Ella was the first investor in the company, but they both had this vision that something more was possible. So, Max began wholesaling vegetables into the Washington Street Market (in New York City),” says Elyse Lipman, CEO of Lipman Family Farms and great-granddaughter of Max and Ella Lipman. “Once he got into the produce space, he saw the opportunity to go to the source. That was the impetus to move the whole family down to Florida and then eventually get into farming. It was, from the very beginning, a family company, and the vision was that they were building something for generations. Those early years, everything went into teaching the kids, building teams and really instilling the value of that notion of building something for the future.”
Now a diversified, vertically integrated company, Lipman Family Farms has more than 3,500 employees with farms, greenhouses, logistics and packing facilities across the U.S. and Mexico.
As the company has grown, Elyse Lipman said the focus on family is still a fundamental part of the business.
“The biggest factor that has contributed to this company’s success really is people. We have over 300 employees who have been with us for over 20 years, and we even have employees who have been here for over 40 years. We have farmers who have been with us for their entire lives, who grew up on these farms and have continued to steward the land and those resources and have trained the next generation of farmers,” she says. “You don’t get people sticking around if you don’t hold true to your values as a company and you’re not consistent in your actions and how you treat each other. Honestly, the culture of this company is a truly special thing, and it’s absolutely connected to the family values of being a family-owned company.”
Planning for the Future
Though the industry and the dynamics might be different for every family-owned business, the common goal for these family-owned companies, and many others like them, is to continue building on the legacy established by their founders. Regardless of how large or small a company may be or how many family members actively participate in running the company, it still boils down to the concept of family and growing the business for the next generation.
“We have a really solid group of people who I can see going the next 20 or 30 years with. I can see us all going long-term together and they’re an extension of our family. We were born here, raised here and we’re going to live it out here,” Kirk says. “I hope that we have a long-term fishery to look forward to. I hope that there are fishermen that want to continue doing this. I hope that we’re all able to do it until I’m either ready to pass it on to my son or I’m ready to step away and move on with it. But I don’t want to do anything else, so they’re stuck with me.”
