2026-03-27
31 分钟Small business stories are so often defined by the path of their CEOs.
But in the case of Gretna Machine Shop from Houston,
Texas, a good chunk of their last 10 years was defined by not having a CEO.
Nubia Perez, daughter of the founder, called that time period the dark years of Gretna's history.
It was a good 10 years, and it was n't that the company was not successful,
but I call it the dark years because of the image of us not truly knowing what was happening.
Her father died in 2012.
He left the company to Nubia, her mother, and her sister.
Who was in charge then, your mom?
That was part of the problem.
There was no clear leadership.
No one that whole time?
It was just the three of you who were running the company.
My mom was president, my sister and I vice president.
But there's no clear functions for those titles at the time.
We didn't have strong policies and procedures.
And so it really just started crumbling.
Until the company reached one of those inflection points that changes everything.
Nubia knew if Gretna was going to survive, they needed to find a leader.
And she had a sinking feeling that leader might be her.