Meet HBJ's 2019 Family Business Awards winners

Family businesses can be the most complicated companies to run.Not only do they have to deal with the typical challenges of operating a business — keeping customers and employees happy, maintaining product quality, paying the bills, etc. — but they also have to manage family relationships.Ensuring everyone gets along — even when disagreements arise, which […]

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Family businesses can be the most complicated companies to run.

Not only do they have to deal with the typical challenges of operating a business — keeping customers and employees happy, maintaining product quality, paying the bills, etc. — but they also have to manage family relationships.

Ensuring everyone gets along — even when disagreements arise, which they inevitably do — can be a daunting task.

That’s why family businesses that withstand the test of time are so deserving of recognition.

And that’s the purpose of Hartford Business Journal’s 2019 Connecticut Family Business Awards, which highlight some of the best and most recognizable family owned companies in the state.

Nearly 25 nominations were submitted for our annual competition this year from a wide range of industries.

They include bakeries, manufacturers, car dealerships, construction firms and even breweries. In the pages that follow, we highlight our top winners and finalists, including what sets them apart from the competition, how they stay ahead in the marketplace and how they remain true to their founding principles in a modern world.

For these companies, the key to long-term success is treating everyone like family, including employees and customers.

The Connecticut Family Business Awards honor companies that had particularly strong successes over the last 12 months: completing expansions, growing in the marketplace, fulfilling major projects and breaking new ground in the local and state business community.

We’d like to thank our independent judges — Gail Lebert, Robin Ann Bienemann and Anthony Price — for helping select our winners, who we celebrated Oct. 24, at an event at Farmington Gardens.

Please join Hartford Business Journal in congratulating this year’s class, and remember we’ll be back next year with a new crop of winners, so please nominate worthy companies.

Greg Bordonaro, Editor