Effective communication is one of the biggest obstacles to successfully transferring ranches to future generations. These workshops were an intensive effort to empower the "Sandwich Generation", those caught in the middle, to instigate a successful transfer plan. A total of 154 participants attended the workshops, 66 families were provided "communication assistance", 25 families obtained legal or financial advice, 10 families planned to meet, and 10 families had consulted one-on-one with Legal Aide attorney/financial advisors.
Surprising to me, many participants were the older generation that owned the farm/ranch. However, many families brought multiple generations to the workshops. The evaluations indicated the workshop needs to focus on "dead-end" situations in a family farm/ranch. Families seem to need education in communication, but did not utilize the one-on-one follow up with the communication specialist as we had anticipated. Many just needed a push to "gain courage to open the lines of communication."