Wake Forest Family Business Center Members Make Splash

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Participants in the upcoming Wake Forest MBA Family Business Center seminar may leave the event dripping wet. The focus of the educational forums is definitely not the typical business seminar fare, as members will learn about the importance of incorporating fun into their lives and their work during sessions on May 1-2, 2007, at the U. S. National Whitewater Center.

Al Gini, author of the book “The Importance of Being Lazy: In Praise of Play, Leisure, and Vacations,” will speak to members about the benefits of play.

“My point is a simple one,” says Gini, professor of philosophy at Loyola University in Chicago. “Even if we love our jobs, find creativity, success and pleasure in our work, we also crave, desire and need not to work. No matter what we do to earn a living, we all need the benefits of leisure, lassitude and inertia.”

Following Gini’s presentation, Family Business Center members will venture on a guided whitewater rafting trip on the world’s largest man-made recirculating river. The program is designed to be fun, but as director of the Wake Forest MBA Family Business Center Tom Ogburn explains, it should not be taken lightly.

“Make no mistake: this is a serious program,” explains Ogburn, executive professor at the Babcock Graduate School of Management. “Taking time to rest and recharge yields benefits for you, your family and your business.”

The Wake Forest MBA Family Business Center was established to address the unique issues faced by family companies and closely held firms. Member companies benefit in many ways from the center’s programs, including educational forums, roundtable discussions, affinity groups and involvement with Wake Forest’s Babcock School. Family Business Center members join with some of North Carolina’s most successful closely held companies to discover new ideas and techniques for their own businesses. With centers on both the Winston-Salem and Charlotte MBA school campuses, the Family Business Center serves more than 80 member companies.