Springfield businesses deal with tragedies

Gordon Elliott, the 61-year-old owner of Elliott Lodging, suffered a heart attack Sept. 23 while on vacation in Beijing, China. Elliott is back home, and began spending a few hours a day at the office Oct. 18.

While Elliott eases back into his work, the staff at Malone Finkle Eckhardt & Collins is adjusting to life without one of their own. Founding partner Mark Malone, 50, died when his RV-6 two-seat airplane crashed Oct. 14 in Joliet, Ill. Malone was flying to Wisconsin on business for the engineering firm.

The two businesses have dealt with the crises in different ways.

Gordon Elliott

Elliott’s overseas scare, for which he was hospitalized 23 days in Beijing and two days at CoxHealth South, has given him a new perspective on life – and his business.

“It really improved the business because I had become such a micro-manager. I just managed every little detail,” said Elliott, who is also senior partner at the accounting firm Elliott Robinson & Co. “I was working 80 hours a week.”

Elliott said his schedule is changing to a normal 40-hour workweek because his staff has shown it can manage the company smoothly.

“I’ve had people here for 20 years,” he said. “In time of need, they’ve kind of taken over.”

Barbara Withers, executive director for Elliott Lodging, said the staff, which consists of 20 in the office and 400 companywide, has been amazing.

“When they found out we had a problem, they all were very protective of the company, and they wanted to make sure that everything carried on,” she said. “Our motto during this time was, ‘Make Gordon proud.’ Everyone was trying to do the very best that they could. He’s taught us a lot, and we had the opportunity to give back a little bit.”

While confined to a hospital bed in China, it was important for Elliott to let people know he was going to be all right by remaining upbeat and staying involved in his business from afar.

“I was getting up at 3 in the morning, making phone calls,” Elliott said. “If they’d call me and I could tell who it was, I’d say, ‘Elliott Lodging, Beijing office.’”

Mark Malone

Mark Malone was a visionary, according to Rod Finkle, one of Malone’s business partners.

“He used to come in on Monday mornings and I couldn’t wait for him to get in here, because he always had something else that he thought we should try or we should do to make us better,” he said.

Malone was working toward an early retirement.

“He said he was semi-retired, which probably meant he quit working 80 hours and was down to about 60 a week,” said Phil Smith, his friend of 20 years.

Finkle said that after the staff of 22 dealt with the shock of Malone’s death, they began to re-evaluate the firm’s direction.

“When he was here, there were things that he did that we can’t do,” Finkle said.

The firm’s partners, including Jon Eckhardt and Cameron Collins, each had a niche to take care of. “Mark’s niche was the business side – the non-engineering stuff,” Finkle said. “Even all the way down to the computers,” which Malone networked and maintained.

The firm, which will retain Malone’s name, is taking the next few weeks to hold internal meetings and create a timeline for hiring five to six additional engineers.

“If I had to narrow it down to the number of people to replace him, it might be as many as four or five for the different things that he did,” Finkle said. “Somehow, somebody will have to pick up that load. But then, he worked 80- to 90-hour weeks. That’s two people right there.”

Cross-training staff members is something Finkle recommends business owners consider. “What worked for us for so many years turned out to be a detriment in the long run — the fact that everyone had their own little niche and worked in that area,” he said. “Mark had a good handle on everything. He was just an extremely unique individual. There are not very many people out there that can do that. Because of that, if you’re not one of those people or don’t have one of those people, then you need to cross-train so that if something like this happens, somebody else knows what’s going on.”

Planning for the future

“Planning ahead of time is a lot better than planning after the fact,” said Bill Evans, an attorney with Carnahan Evans Cantwell & Brown PC. “There’s no cookie-cutter answer for everybody,” he said.

Elliott said that he didn’t have a plan on paper but relied on his son, Todd, and Withers. “I knew my succession plan was to get as many good people (hired) and keep them as long as I could. As well as they’ve handled the business since I’ve been gone, you know, plans are just on paper. This one worked really well,” he said.

Finkle said that eight years ago, he and his partners set up a buy-sell agreement, “which is a must. We would have been devastated without that.” He declined to disclose details about the arrangement.

Buy-sell agreements should be a partnership between accountants, attorneys and insurance professionals, said Andrea Croley, co-owner of Croley Insurance and Financial Inc. “It’s something that all three need to be involved in, so everybody’s aware of what’s being done.”

Evans said, “If there’s no buy-sell agreement and there’s no succession plan, and you have a key stockholder that dies, then those shares are then disposed of according to whatever his estate plan is. If there’s no estate plan, then it’s passed as an intestate succession to his heirs.”

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