When dad's also your boss

We talked with some Atlantans who work with and for their fathers, to see how they might celebrate Father’s Day.

The Clevelands

In 1925, Ras Hitson Cleveland, an Atlantan with a third-grade education, began repairing electric fans and other appliances. His company grew.

Since then, four generations of Clevelands have been in charge of Cleveland Electric, an electrical contracting company that operates all over the state and has $150 million in annual sales. Jimmy Cleveland Jr., 71, a member of the third generation, is semi-retired as CEO, but remains chairman. Son John, 44, is president and chief operating officer; and younger son David, 38, is a project manager. Two fourth-generation cousins also work at the company.

All have had the experience of working for their fathers, and they refer to it as a privilege — and something of a sobering responsibility.

“It’s kind of my position as the head to be a good steward of the resources that I’ve inherited and a good mentor for the rest of the family,” Jimmy Cleveland said. “You don’t want to be the one who messed it up. And, frankly, I wouldn’t turn it over to them [his children] if I didn’t think they could handle it.”

“Dad always told us it’s not going to be a free ride,” David Cleveland said. “You’ve got to work your way up from the bottom, and wherever you’re going to go, you’re not going to get promotions just because you’re a Cleveland. I think we all put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make sure we are performing at a level that we have earned our way.”

Jimmy Cleveland not only likes working with his children, he takes it as a compliment that two of his three sons chose to stay with the company. “They obviously have a choice to go somewhere else.”

Before heading back to his part-time home in Jacksonville, the elder Cleveland said he’s had an early Father’s Day dinner with each of his three sons, including Robert Cleveland, 42, who left the business to work in the home health-care industry.

John Cleveland said what he’s learned from his father is “do the right thing in work life and family life.” David Cleveland said his father modeled the best qualities that he knows: “Hard work, honesty, ethics, treating people right and loving your family.”

The McClatcheys

John B. McClatchey Sr. was teaching philosophy at a small college in North Carolina in 1977 when his father invited him to come to work at the family business, Southern Aluminum Finishing, founded in 1946.

Today McClatchey, 65, is poised to hand over the reigns to one of several family members in his generation. His three children — Eliza, 39, Carl, 36, and John, 33 — all work for the company and praise him, not just as a father, but as a manager.

Working for your father isn’t as challenging as it might sound, said Carl McClatchey, comptroller with the company, who worked in bookkeeping at a variety of other businesses before joining the company in 2004.

“The topic dictates what mode he’s in. If we’re talking about something that’s work-related, he’s in work mode, and if we’re talking about something dad-related, he’s in dad mode.”

The two have a common interest outside of work, in that Carl studied philosophy at the University of Georgia, leading to breakfast table chats about Kant and Camus. “He is very calm, very reasoned. He doesn’t rush to judgment; his thought processes are always transparent and systematic,” the son said. “I don’t think he would have gone into philosophy if he had not had that demeanor in the first place.”

Project manager Eliza McClatchey Evans said when they were growing up, “he has always let us make mistakes and then comforted us afterwards rather than be a ‘helicopter parent.’ I think he is the same way with employees; he is not a micromanager. It definitely lets you know he has faith in you, which feels good.”

Training in philosophy is an unusual precursor to a career in aluminum, but that life has made the senior McClatchey more empathetic, both to customers and vendors, his children say.

“He feels a lot,” sales manager John B. McClatchey Jr. said. “I think that transferred to me in sales. A lot of what I do is built on developing relationships.”

Is it difficult to avoid the temptation to treat your adult children as if they’re still children?

John B. McClatchey Sr. said switching between the fatherly and managerial hats isn’t too challenging. “Usually, I only have trouble if a family member is disagreeing with another.” He solves that problem by taking himself out of the equation. “If I want to step in, I don’t.”

The elder McClatchey responded by e-mail from Sweden, where he is visiting family. Father’s Day will have to wait until he gets back, when the family plans to take in a Braves game.

The Wilsons

The CEO of Home Depot often stresses a back-to-basics philosophy, extolling the old days and the company’s founding principles of customer care.

Chris Wilson, 30, the Northeast Georgia district manager at Home Depot, knows all about the “old days” because he learned them at his daddy’s knee. His father, George Wilson, began working for Home Depot 28 years ago, and the Wilson bloodline runs Home Depot orange.

“I grew up in the store. I was there all the time,” said the younger Wilson, who used to help his dad’s boss put out flowers in the garden department when he was 6 years old. Everybody he knew worked at the big box chain, and he knew as a teenager he wanted to join the company.

His dad has never been his boss, but his dad’s philosophy has always been the rule: put the customer first.

After stints at other stores, the son came to work at the Stone Mountain location where his father worked. Chris ran the garden department and his father ran flooring. “People always used to come to me and brag about my dad, about what a caring guy he was. ... And being at the same store with him made me work harder. I never wanted to disappoint him.”

After Chris Wilson was promoted to assistant store manager in another store, his superiors sought out George to brag about Chris. “You have moments of pride,” said the elder Wilson, 53. “We had the same district manager, and he’d come tell me how good a job my son was doing. I was so proud he was able to succeed in the business I was in myself.”

George Wilson has remained happily at the assistant store manager level, now at the store in Monroe.

Chris has climbed the corporate ladder. The father is proud of his son — and his other two children, Jennifer, 28, who is going into teaching, and Ryan, 25, who is in the heating and cooling business.

Chris would like to move up the chain of command at Home Depot, but his short-term goal is to keep pushing performance. He jokes to his associates that they need to work hard to bring up that stock price so his dad can afford to retire.

Or at least take a day off. George Wilson may be working today, which means Father’s Day could be a lunch-break get-together.

Somehow, the setting seems appropriate. “My dad, he always came home happy,” Chris Wilson said. “And to friends and neighbors, I was always proud to say my dad’s a manager at Home Depot.”