Leslie Quinsay - Legacy: A Guide to Successfully Transferring Wealth from One Generation to the Next

Dedication

For my amazing parents, Armando & Elisa Lopez, who taught me to dream big, reach for the stars, and live my life to the fullest. I am where I am today because of your constant support and encouragement.

For my husband, Ron, who is my rock, my best friend, my business partner and fellow adventure seeker. Together we rock this world.

For my son, Ethan, an old soul filled with so much wisdom. You inspire me to give the best of myself every single day. You are the best part of my legacy.

For my brother, Junior Lopez, and my nephews Chad and Cole Lopez, who are all an integral part of our family business team.

How ridiculous would it be to begin drafting an evacuation plan in the middle of a natural disaster?

Then when a fire was burning or a flood approaching, you would find yourself planning instead of evacuating! Weve all seen the chaos that ensues when there is no planpanic, inaction, mistakes, desperation

Were told to plan for every eventualitytax obligations, furthering our education, unexpected health issues, fire or theft, possible natural disasters, our vacations, and various family eventsbut not for our death. Imagine if tomorrow you had to take over your familys business or unravel the finances of someone who left no instructions.

We never thought anything like that would ever happen to us. Everyone

There are some moments in life that you remember so vividly. For me, one of those moments was an early morning dawn on a crisp winter day in December. I clearly remember being abruptly awoken from my peaceful slumber when the phone rang. A quick glance at the clock on my nightstand told me it was only 5:00 a.m. and my heartbeat quickened. Getting calls at such an early hour can only mean two things: one, some random telemarketing company has you in their system for some type of automated sales call (super annoying), or two, something bad has happened.

I jumped out of bed and grabbed the phone. Hello? All I remember is hearing my moms voice telling me not to worry but to please come to the hospital.

My dad had not been feeling well for a few days, but we all thought he was just tired and sore after returning from a business trip. As it turned out, my mom had decided to call an ambulance late in the evening, worried that something really was wrong with my father. My mom is an amazing woman and her nurses instincts proved correct. My dad was having a heart attack! Thankfully, the ambulance got him to the hospital quickly, and after having surgery to insert a stent, he was taken to the recovery room.

I remember waking up my husband, Ron, to tell him what was going on, while I threw on any clothes I could find and hurried to get on my way. I was so frazzled that I didnt even brush my teeth or wash my face, I just scrambled out the door. In my car, I called my brother and asked him to meet me at the hospital.

When I arrived, I navigated the maze of hallways to look for my mom. She had been there by herself all night because she didnt want to alarm my brother and me. Thats my mom for youalways thinking about others and taking on so much herself. So, by the time we arrived, Dad was already out of surgery and in the ICU recovering. Mom took me in to see him and I have to admit I felt hesitant to go into his room. Its such a scary thing to see someone you love in a hospital bed with tubes attached and weird machines blinking and beeping.

We walked in and asked Dad how he was feeling. Although he was a bit dazed from the medication, he seemed to be doing okay. We were so lucky he had survived!

Then I shuddered to think of what would have happened with the family business if he hadnt survived!

What would have happened? Did Dad have insurance? Where did he keep his policy information? What about his investments, bank accounts, real estate? Did he have an up-to-date will? Who would be able to make decisions on his behalf if he became incapacitated?

After things settled down, it dawned on all of us that even though we had talked about it a little, we never really understood the impact it would have if something happened to one of us. It was as if we believed that death or health issues just didnt happen in our family. And although we had done some basic planning, nothing had been updated in several years.

Personal Sacrifices Had to Be Made

At the time of my dads heart attack, I was not active in the day-to-day operations of our family business. With Dads blessing, I was taking some time to explore my own passions, which revolved around real estate investing. But, as we sat in that hospital room and my dad became more aware of what had happened to him, he said, You need to go to AMAG to make sure everything is okay while I recover. (AMAG is our family business and it stands for Advanced Measurement & Analysis Group Inc.)

That may not seem like much to ask, but for me it meant taking a huge detour in my life so as to attend to our family affairs. Ill talk more about that later

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. Although it was a long and bumpy recovery, Dad is doing fine today and is now very focused on healthy living. He reminds us all the time of how important it is to take care of our health. Without health, nothing else really matters, does it?

Our family business is also thriving. After this experience, we began to meet regularly to review where we were and to ensure that we had proper succession planning in place. We have a great team of mentors who support us, and we have spent a lot of time having deep conversations about where we all stand. We are fortunate it turned out this way, but when we stop to think about the what ifs, we realize how unprepared we really were at the time.