What Happens When Your CFO Drops Dead?
Insurance and noncompete agreements can help protect small businesses if a crucial employee dies or defects.
Farmer Kent Bickett loads seed variety codes into a computer on a John Deere tractor in Malden, Ill., in May 2014.
Photographer: Daniel Acker/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Although Frahm Farmland has been run by the same family for six generations, it’s not just another family farm. The 30,000-acre spread in Colby, Kan., is a high-tech agribusiness. “We can run almost the whole farm from iPhones and iPads,” says owner and Chief Executive Officer Lon Frahm. “We can monitor soil conditions, turn the irrigation on and off. Everything we own steers itself.”
Frahm has only nine employees, each well-versed in those technical aspects. Replacing a worker would mostly require teaching him how to master the technology. But at age 59, Frahm has been thinking, What happens when I can’t walk through the door?