According to a 2006 study conducted by Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 85 percent of family businesses do not make it past the first generation because of lack of succession planning and knowledge transfer. This was not the case with the Garman family.

Tyler Garman's father, uncle and grandfather didn't exactly take it easy on him when they put him to work for the family business.

As a teenager, they put Garman to work on the factory floor at The RoArk Group Inc. in Rogers doing "grunt work" as he called it, cleaning and wrapping equipment that was being sold or just tidying up the warehouse.