Mixing family and business

2/4/2026

Family businesses often blur the line between work and home, where dinner-table conversations double as strategy sessions and legacy weighs as much as the bottom line. For these local business leaders, working with family isn’t just a career path; it’s a daily challenge and a source of deep pride.

Growing up in hospitality 

Pritesh Patel’s family has owned and operated hotels for more than 25 years. Most recently, they have brought a new concept to the industry.

Hotel Pommier is the family’s independent hotel brand, beginning with the renovation and conversion of the Apple Tree Inn in Indianola. The brand grew when the family converted the Super 8 in Chariton into Hotel Pommier Chariton.

Like many small-business owners, Patel’s role has evolved over time — from covering front desk shifts and laundry to setting high-level strategy and obsessing over the guest experience.

“In a family-run hotel, you don’t really ‘join’ the business as much as you grow up within it,” he shares. “My early involvement was helping parents fold towels, clean rooms and even do payroll. I had always helped behind the scenes throughout college in areas my parents couldn’t outwork, like technology.”

After college, Patel spent his early career as a consultant, traveling across the nation and staying at dozens of hotels. Ultimately, he decided to return to the family business after recognizing a unique opportunity to apply what he had learned from modern, big-city properties to a local setting.

“I wanted to prove that you don’t have to be in a major metro area to offer a sophisticated, tech-forward and design-conscious guest experience,” he says.

With Hotel Pommier, he’s done just that. Still, as with many family businesses, work doesn’t always stay at work — it often follows him home.

“Great way to annoy the heck out of family that could care less about what towels we are going to buy,” Patel jokes.

Despite the challenges, working in the family business remains a point of pride. Patel credits his parents’ years of hard work and sacrifice as the foundation that made Hotel Pommier possible.

“Taking an existing property and breathing new life into it as an independent brand versus a corporate chain was a risk,” he says. “But, seeing the community and guest support has been incredibly rewarding. I hope we turn each of our hotels from another place to sleep into a point of local pride.”

The family recently acquired a third Hotel Pommier location in Winterset and is eager to get it up and running.

“Madison County has so many local gems, and we hope our hotel earns its place as a small part of what makes the community so special,” Patel says.

Continuing a legacy

For Christy Jones, there was never a time when she wasn’t surrounded by her family business.

R Jones Auto Body was founded in 1971 by her father, Bob, and his business partner. Over the years — and through several name changes — the business became R Jones Collision 1, a premier collision repair facility on Merle Hay Road in Urbandale.

It was truly a family-run operation. After buying out his partner, Jones’ father, who ran production, brought in his brother Richard as a body technician. Jones’ mother, Ann, joined the business in the mid-1980s, handling accounting while Jones and her siblings were in school full time, keeping every part of the operation within the family.

Yet, Jones says she never felt pressured to join the business. She had the freedom to choose her own path, so she earned a teaching degree and spent a year in the classroom before realizing it wasn’t her calling.

That realization led her to North Carolina, where she gave herself space to figure out her next chapter.

“Life, however, had other plans, and when my mom became ill, coming home to support both my family and the business felt like the right thing to do,” Jones shares.

In 2015, Bob and Richard retired, and Jones purchased the business. Six years later, she sold it to Caliber Collision, though her work today still reflects her family legacy.

“I now work as a business coach, helping other family-owned and small businesses navigate growth, succession and sustainability — many of the same challenges I experienced firsthand,” Jones explains.

When it comes to working with family, Jones says there is rarely a clear separation between business and personal life.

“When your coworkers are also your dad and your uncle, the business naturally becomes a topic of conversation at family dinners, holidays and gatherings,” she says. “The lines between personal and professional life blur quickly, and learning when to talk business — and when not to — is one of the biggest challenges of working in a family-run company.”

On the flip side, Jones says working with family taught her patience and compromise.

“When multiple family members are involved, everyone brings strong opinions, history and emotional investment to the table,” she says. “You learn quickly that you won’t win every battle, and that’s OK. Learning how to listen, stay patient and find middle ground is critical, not just for the business, but for preserving relationships.”

Ultimately, Jones is proud of what her family built together.

“Our business served customers with integrity and supported our community for decades,” she says. “Most of all, I’m proud that we truly were better together. Each of us brought different strengths to the business, and that combination is what made it successful.”

Those lessons continue to shape Jones’ life today.

“It taught me that businesses are about more than numbers — they’re about people,” she says. “That experience continues to influence the work I do today, helping other business owners build strong teams, healthy cultures and sustainable legacies of their own.”

Running a business with a sibling

Megan Griffith never intended to join the family business — P&M Apparel, a third-generation, family- and woman-owned custom apparel and branding company in Polk City founded in 1987.

“I wanted to be a big shot graphic designer and move somewhere like New York and work at a magazine,” Griffith says. “I realized pretty quickly that the sacrifices you have to make to get in those big shot positions weren’t sacrifices I wanted to make. So, when my mom needed a designer, we went into it as a temporary solution, and I came to appreciate the freedom to make creative choices, and the impact we can make in the community.”

P&M Apparel, named for Griffith’s grandparents, Phyllis and Melvin, offers custom screen printing, embroidery, promotional products and more. The shop was taken over by Griffith’s mom when Griffith was a teenager. About two and a half years ago, Griffith and her brother Ryan assumed ownership.

Griffith manages art and day-to-day operations, while Ryan oversees web work and larger strategic initiatives.

“Both Ryan and I kind of grew up in the business: first visiting our grandparents and playing around in their shop when we were little, spending days as a shop kid hanging around if we were sick or had the day off from school, to then jumping in and helping with production as we got older,” Griffith shares. “I finally joined full time in 2012 and have been here ever since.”

One reality she has learned is that it is impossible to completely separate work from life in a family business.

“At a normal job, you punch a clock and go home, celebrate the holidays with your family, spend the weekend not thinking about work,” she says. “But working with family, I leave work and I’m texting my brother ideas within a couple hours, or I’m bringing my kids to work, or we celebrate holidays with my mom and start talking shop within a few minutes. My life is woven right into my job and vice versa.”

Griffith also believes family dynamics shape her leadership style as an employer.

“Prioritizing the person over the action, considering love languages and how to best understand them and communicate in a way they will understand, all play pivotal roles as an employer,” she says. “My mom always put family before business if there was a disagreement or emergency, and we treat our staff the same way.”

As a third-generation owner, Griffith feels the weight — and pride — of legacy. When her grandparents started the business, their goal was to earn $300 a week. Today, P&M Apparel operates out of a large facility with a dedicated staff and a strong foundation of community involvement.

“We are responsible for putting food on the tables of every person in our company, and that’s not something Ryan or I take lightly,” Griffith says. “Our clients are walking into our building with the things they’re most passionate about in all the world, and it’s our responsibility to be passionate about it, too, so we can deliver them the exact products they need to tell their story. We are the picture of a small business: we’re local people, coming together to serve the local community in a way you can’t receive from big business. And I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve built and the legacy we’ve built on.” ♦