New Program Helps Family Business Advisors

Family businesses, vital in Central PA, need expert counsel

ELIZABETHTOWN, PA (02/14/2012)(readMedia)-- Family businesses are complicated. Providing professional advice to family businesses involves additional dynamics that can impact their competitiveness as well as the effectiveness of family business advisors.

That's why experts at the S. Dale High Center for Family Business at Elizabethtown College are now offering a best-in-class Family Business Advisor Program to help professionals who work with family businesses be more effective advising family-held firms.

This intensive two-day workshop is a professional development opportunity, unique to Central Pennsylvania, that provides information, education, case studies, role playing, and other dynamic experiences for professionals serving family businesses.

"It will equip them with a new set of tools for effective management of the interactions between the family and the business," explained Mike McGrann, executive director of the High Center, and a co-facilitator of the program, along with Dr. Steven K. Moyer, principal of SKM Associates LLC, a full-service family business consulting firm.

The Family Business Advisor Program has been designed expressly for professionals providing products or services to family businesses. Attendees should have 5- to 7+ years of experience and be committed to growing the family business sector of their business.

Participants will bring a real-life case study to the workshop and obtain expert feedback from the instructors and program peers. In addition, they will receive individual feedback and follow-up from the facilitators after the event, to further increase their expertise with family business clients.

The Family Business Advisor Program will be offered on two consecutive Wednesdays, June 6 and June 13, 2012, from 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. at the S. Dale High Center for Family Business, Hoover Center, Elizabethtown College campus.

More information is available at their website at www.centerforfamilybusiness.org at "Business Advisor Program" or by calling 717-361-1275. An early-bird discount on the registration fee is available through March 1, 2012.

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With almost 50 member family businesses, the S. Dale High Center for Family Business at Elizabethtown College is one of largest resource organizations for family-owned firms in the United States. Created by a group of business people, family business owners, and representatives of Elizabethtown College, the Center helps family businesses achieve family unity and prosperity, continue their legacy of entrepreneurship, and create social and economic wealth across multiple generations. Serving south-central Pennsylvania and beyond since 1995, the Center believes that strengthening entrepreneurial families enhances the community and the economy as well. More information is available at the website: www.centerforfamilybusiness.org, by emailing FBC@etown.edu or by calling 717.361.1275.

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Elizabethtown College, in south-central Pennsylvania, is a private coed institution offering more than four dozen liberal arts, fine and performing arts, science and engineering, business, communications and education degrees. Through personal attention, creative inspiration and academic challenge, Elizabethtown College students are encouraged to expand their intellectual curiosity and are given the opportunity to become a bigger part of the world through experiential learning-research, internships and study abroad. Elizabethtown College's overall commitment to Educate for Service is fulfilled as students are taught intellectually, socially, aesthetically and ethically for lives of service and leadership.

Visit www.etown.edu for more information about Elizabethtown College.