Ken Potter Sr. started his career in the snack food industry at the bottom of the barrel. He was 15 years old when EL-GE Potato Chip Co. in York hired him to do the grunt work a teenager usually has to do, everything from cleaning bathrooms to shoveling potatoes.
Nearly 50 years later, he will be going out on top. When Potter retires as president of Martin's Potato Chips Inc. Feb. 1 - the day before his 65th birthday - he will leave behind a company that is one of the major players in the American snack food industry.
He and his wife, Sandra, bought the Jackson Township, York Countybased company in 1971, when it was a one-employee operation with annual revenue of $80,000 to $90,000. Today, it's a company with international ties that sends chips to Air Force One.
"I never dreamed of this," Potter said. "I dreamed about owning five trucks on the road. Now I dream to sell (Martin's products) along the entire East Coast. I have to leave something for the boys to do."
Potter intends to transfer his stock to his three sons and to his controller, all of whom work as ex ecutives at the business. He plans to become the company's chairman and advise his successors, when needed
"Right after I retire, I will probably have a fit," Potter said, laughing. "But I'll get used to it. It's been 50 years, and it's time to smell the roses."
If smelling the roses means Potter stays out of his sons' way, that's a good thing, according to succession planners.
It is important for retiring owners of family-owned businesses to disengage themselves from the day-to-day operations of their companies, said Tim Brown, president and chief executive officer of Sageworth Trust Co. His private trust and investment management firm is owned by successful families in Central Pennsylvania including the Kinsleys in York County and the Highs in Lancaster County. Sageworth is based in Manheim Township, Lancaster County.
"The best transitions occur when the older generation stays just involved enough to pass along all their knowledge and experience, but allows the next generation to make all the key decisions," Brown said.
Some patriarchs and matriarchs mistakenly run their family businesses for too long, not allowing sufficient time to develop their next generation of business owners, Brown said. Potter was aware of that issue. He didn't want to make his sons wait too long, he said.
On Feb. 2, Potter plans to begin working at York College of Pennsylvania. He accepted a job as a consultant to the college's business program last month. (See, "College wants business starters," on page 3.) He intends to use his business connections to help the college's students land internships with area companies. He will lecture about entrepreneurship.
While Potter pursues his second career, his successors at Martin's intend to continue improving the company that their dad made a household name in Central Pennsylvania and beyond. Potter's successors are David Potter, 31, district manager in Lancaster; Kevin Potter, 40, vice president of sales and marketing; Ken "Butch" Potter Jr., 43, vice president of operations; and Steve Fitz, controller.
Their plans include looking for a new flavored snack to market, exploring healthier snacks, adding two or three managers and an undetermined number of employees. They also intend to improve the quality of products and service, and sell snacks in more grocery stores, convenience stores and vending machines, they said.
Martin's has hired an advertising agency to do public relations that will put a positive spin on the company's looming change in ownership, Ken Potter Sr. said. People get alarmed about change, he said. It will be business as usual because the company has spent years preparing for the change, Kevin Potter said.
Good planning is crucial to ensuring that business succession works, said Jack Greenwood, managing partner at Wienken & Associates, a financial planning firm in Camp Hill. Good planning also reassures customers and employees, he said.
"Two reasons why the majority of businesses don't succeed to the next generation is that there's been no apparent successor or a lack of planning," Greenwood said.
Potter said he has been looking to retire for the past three or four years and has been planning for the change during much of that time.
Reflecting on his nearly 50 years in the snack food industry, Potter recalled some of his proudest accomplishments.
In 1974, Martin's introduced its first kettle-cooked potato chips, the company's most popular product, and quickly began mass-marketing them in other states. The business increased the number of states in which it sells snacks from one - Pennsylvania - to five on the East Coast. In 1985, the manufacturer helped the Chinese government start a potato chip plant in China. Later, Martin's helped entrepreneurs in Australia start a plant there. Martin's bought a packaging machine that revolutionized how the company bagged snacks.
Potter also shared a couple of his fondest memories.
In the early years, he dressed as a clown named Muncho Martin the Clown to promote Martin's. He handed out balloons with the company's logo and chips to shoppers at grocery stores on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. His wife, Sandra, who worked as his company's business manager, helped.
"We created a riot in stores," Potter said. "People couldn't get enough of our chips. The promotion worked, and we had a lot of fun."
In the 1990s, when now-former President Bill Clinton visited downtown York to campaign at Central Market House, Potter tapped on the window of the limousine that Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were riding in. She lowered the window, and Potter held out a bag of his company's chips. "These are for the next president of the United States," he said. She thanked him and took the chips.
They were a hit with President Clinton. For the past six years, Potter has delivered Kettle Cook'd and Bar-B-Q chips to Air Force One.
"That's a kick," Potter said. "I will miss that."
Asked whether he is concerned about the growing awareness of obesity in America, Potter was matter-of-fact.
"I've been eating a pound of chips a day for almost 50 years and I weigh 165," Potter said. "It's not a fattening food. The sugar and cola kill your weight. That's why I drink bottled water.
Martin said his sales are growing every year and that only a minority of people are concerned about their weight.
"...Two percent of people are very thin. Are you going to worry about feeding 98 percent or 2 percent? I want that 98 percent."
Kevin Potter, who said his 10-year-old son is interested in working at Martin's, plans to prepare his boy for what he might be getting himself into.
"There's no such thing as a normal Thanksgiving dinner when four of the people are working at the same business," Kevin Potter said.
"We don't go five minutes without some discussion about the business."
Ken Potter Sr. wouldn't have it any other way.
"It's all about loving what you do," the patriarch of the family said. "It makes life simple."
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