“I’m a total gear-head,” laughed Deb Houden, the new director of the University of Wisconsin Family Business Center. As a sister to three brothers, and the daughter of a father who restores Model Ts, Houden’s passion for cars is understandable. “I have old cars — a ’67 Mustang that I researched for four years, then found in California; a ’63 Buick Electra 225, a ’67 Lincoln Continental — all convertibles,” she said, though she admits she “married into” the Buick and Lincoln. “I love new cars, old cars, renting cars… I just like to check out the different gadgets.”
Born and raised in Green Bay, Wis., Houden’s father, a truck driver, and her mother, who worked for a paper products company, were tough but fair, she said. “We were always taught to save our money, and to put a certain amount of any gift money we received away. All four of us went to school, and all four of us paid our own way. ‘This is your responsibility,’ they’d say.”
For Houden, college represented an opportunity to explore a world beyond Green Bay, and she quickly learned there were benefits in her ability to finance her own education. “I didn’t have to answer to anyone. There was no one looking at my report card or my future, to a certain extent. My choices were mine, and I had to live with the consequences.”
In 1986, one class short of earning her degree, Houden exercised her personal freedom in a big way by leaving school and moving to Chicago, where she found a job as a bartender. “I was tired of being poor,” she admitted. Eventually, she returned to Madison, completed the course, and earned her degree in Communication Arts.
In 2002, at the age of 37, when her youngest of three children started kindergarten, Houden decided to return to school as a traditional student in pursuit of more advanced degrees. “I knew I wanted to go into communications,” she said. “I believe that if people don’t know how to communicate effectively, their ideas won’t go anywhere.”
Houden found her new college pursuit exhilarating, if not a bit intimidating. “I was the old lady,” she said. “I took a lot of business school MBA courses, where there were older students, but in Communications Arts, I was by far the oldest.” Still, she persevered. Later, she served as an educator and lecturer for UW-Madison, Concordia College, and MATC, and received her Ph.D. last fall.
Houden, who married into a family business (her husband owns a direct marketing company), now focuses on family businesses full time. “They are the backbone of the economy,” she said, “and they’re well-poised to make it through the economic downturn. They also face a unique set of experiences, and sometime feel a bit isolated.”
The Family Business Center is a membership organization providing members with networking opportunities and six major programs every year, in addition to a bevy of ancillary programs. Houden looks forward to growing the Center’s membership base regionally and to providing more educational opportunities.
Next year, for instance, the center plans a day camp for middle-school aged children of family business owners. “For me,” Houden said, “this is just the most opportune situation.”
Between the new job and her family (her children are now aged 17, 15, and 12), Houden keeps busy. Yet, on a chilly, miserable Saturday, she’ll often be found nestled in front of her home computer, searching the Internet for cars.
