A Seat at the Table

Growing up with the backdrop of a small Japanese village, Taro's yearning for freedom and acceptance was a seed that would eventually blossom into an American dream. Alongside his son Koki, Taro shares how he saved enough money from a paper route to fly his whole family to America as a teenager. He talks about how his father had a dream they should open a restaurant and how a chance encounter with a Japanese businessman landed...

Discover the incredible transformation of Roy and Ryan Hill, the sibling duo behind Elite Service Experts, as they share their tale of turning a period of near hopelessness into a flourishing family legacy. Their father's daring decision to purchase his former employer's equipment and transition to serving an established customer base set the groundwork for what would become a testament to entrepreneurial resilience. This...

One would not suspect a young newspaper carrier to redefine the process from sidewalk or porch drop to in-home delivery, as it was self defined.  Now would one expect that to turn into his first positive business exit.  But that's what you'll hear on today's episode with Mark Haney. Inspiring, educational and not without the highs and lows of taking the family business into a creative growth cycle only to find a high...

What a wonderful story this episodes displays of a family that has come together in the interest of not only continuing a legacy but also for sharing a passion of the very thing that kept them together.  Honey.  Josh and Shoshana Zeldner have a unique story to tell about how their interest in continuing the education about honey that their father started with his wife, their mother Amina, was brought to life after he had passed.  A...

Natalie talks with Jennifer Carriere-LaDuke, who is a 4th generation owner, board member, and marketing wiz for her 133 year old family farming business, Carriere Family Farms. 

The business started with her great grandfather coming to the Sacramento area from Canada where he worked for a farmer clearing thick vegetation from the land surrounding the Sacramento River and helped planting row crops. Before long he fell in lo...

Join the conversation as your host,  Natalie Mariani-Kling delves into Sacramento history by talking with Kevin Fat, a 3rd generation member of the Frank Fat’s Restaurant Group family. Frank Fat’s in downtown Sacramento stands as the oldest family owned restaurant in the city, having opened in 1939 and still being owned and run by members of the Fat family. 

Kevin talks about the history of Fat’s, how his grandfather first came to A...

Alan Turanski grew up in the beekeeping world and started to keep his own hive by age 10. His father Dick Turanski started a honey and beekeeping accessory company in the 1970’s after trying some poison oak honey at a friend's house. Soon Glory Bee honey was being sold in large quantities to natural food stores and bakeries for use in healthy breads. 

Alan took over as President of the company several years ago and has led the ...

Sub Sea Systems started with the dream of making underwater adventure in the ocean accessible to more people than just trained scuba divers and those in the Navy. Jim Mayfield first dreamed of submarines for tourists in the mid 80’s but soon pivoted to semi-submersible vehicles. 

With the sale of nearly 30 of these commercial vehicles Sub Sea Systems was born and it has continued to grow it’s product line to solar powered catamarans...

Today's episode is a unique story for A Seat at the Table.  Typically we interview single family businesses, but Holt of California would never have become as mighty as it is today, employing 900 people brokering deals for Caterpillar equipment. It was the joining of three separate family businesses that allowed Holt of California to be a mainstay in the California agriculture business. 

Your host, Natalie Mariani-Kling talks w...

Stan Van Vleck always had a drive to succeed and a mind for business. He grew up in a cattle ranching family and had his eyes set on being a part of the family business but unfortunately, old school tradition shut him out of that opportunity as he was not the first born son in his family and didn't quite fit the mold his father wanted him to fit.

After being told several times by his father that he could not be a part of the fa...

Natalie talks with Paul Endelman whose father Ken started the world's largest manufacturer of pilates equipment and education. Paul is head of sales strategy at Balanced Body and he tells the story of how his father went from building custom water beds to building custom exercise equipment for a famous Hollywood trainer. 

Paul tells Natalie how his grandfather instilled in him a love of art that led him to seek out art all...

Mark Echeverria is the 4th generation operator of Musso and Frank Grill in Hollywood. Musso and Frank is part of Hollywood culture and history, having been a meeting place for movie executives, famous writers like Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, rock stars like Keith Richards and countless movie stars. 

Mark talks about how the restaurant almost closed after nearly 90 years and how he was tapped by his family to move from A...

Chris Benziger comes from a long line of family working in the beverage business, starting with his grandfather smuggling Canadian whiskey into America on a tugboat during prohibition. But it was his oldest brother Mike who realized so much great wine was coming out of California and convinced his entrenched New York City family to move across the country and start a winery in Northern California.

All this happened when Chris was ju...

Natalie talks with Chairwoman Shawn Devlin and CEO Steve Fleming about the origins of River City Bank, which started with a desire to buy a helicopter and a business plan written on a cocktail napkin during a dinner at Frank Fat’s in Sacramento. 

Shawn recounts the story of her father going from radio station owner, to TV station owner, to TV salesman and distributor, to founder of the region's first commercial bank. 

Shawn and ...

Natalie talks with father and son, Dave and Ryan Lucchetti about how Pacific Coast Building Products has gone from 100 employees to over 3500 employees and many subsidiary companies under Dave’s leadership over the last several decades. 

Dave shares what it was like to take over a family business as the son-in-law of the founder, while Ryan talks about working his way up through the company in several different roles before being na...

Your host,  Natalie Mariani Kling sits down with father and son, John Delmare and Allan Delmare of Rappahannock Cellars and Dida’s Distillery, both nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.  25 years ago John and his wife made the huge decision to leave California and take their eight kids (at the time) across the country to start a new business in the growing Virginia wine market.  John and Allan talk about how their family...

The Adams Group has been in business for over 100 years, getting started when the founder, David Adams was transporting barley from Woodland to the port of Oakland in a horse drawn buggy to be shipped to Britain during a barley shortage in the 1920’s. 

Since then the Adams Group has grown into a food ingredient, vegetable oil and trucking company that produces ingredients found in millions of products found on your grocery store she...

Today Natalie talks with Vincent Ricchiuti of Ricchiuti Family Farms.  At just 23 years old Vincent showed up to the annual family board meeting with the bold idea for the family to shift from growing stone fruit to growing other crops that he believed had a better long term outlook. 

Natalie talks to Vincent about what it’s like to come into a family business as the fourth generation and uphold the traditions built while also movin...

Today Natalie sits down with Wayne Bishop of Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm. 

In 1973, Wayne’s parents, Bill and Sandy Bishop planted the first pumpkins and invited local schools to come visit the farm. Soon after that Sandy and her friends started baking pies in her kitchen to sell to guests when they came to visit. 

Since then the Bishop’s built a full scale bakery where they still bake scratch made pumpkin pie from pumpkins grown on the fa...