Cierra Welch and father | Photo submitted by Cierra Welch
Cierra Welch wants to be a personal trainer but may end up selling garage doors instead.
Family business pressure
Welch, 20, dreams of studying exercise science and becoming a strength coach for college athletes. But, her father has a successful business and she says he would like her to take it over.
“For as long as I can remember, my dad would say, ‘When you take over the business you’ll understand.’ I remember feeling like I would disappoint him if my career path wasn’t in business,” she said.
The last thing Welch wants to do is disappoint her dad.
Welch plays for Valparaiso University in Indiana on the women’s soccer team and recalls soccer being her inspiration for wanting to become a college strength coach. Her dad has supported her throughout her soccer career; Welch only hopes he does the same off the field.
Welch double majors in business and entrepreneurship at Valparaiso. Her dad founded a business that replaces and repairs garage doors and openers.
Welch plans on taking over her family business and knows the sacrifices her dad made to make the business successful. He struggled with obtaining a startup small business grant. This grant is funding from the government to help small companies grow their business. She fears the company could fail once she takes over.
The fear of failure has pushed Welch towards double majoring. Welch felt if she was educated on how a company is run she will be better prepared when the time comes to take over the business.
Welch is not putting her dreams of being a strength and conditioning coach on hold. Once she completes her undergraduate degree, she wants to get a certificate in sports training allowing her to train people of all ages.
Ideally, Welch wants to follow in her father’s footsteps of entrepreneurship and, instead of working as a college coach, open a gym and become a personal trainer. Welch knows her dream of opening her own gym is far off.
“I don’t have any siblings that could possibly take over the family business. It’s just me,” she said. “I am my dad’s only option for the family business to continue on and that is where the pressure is applied.”
While Welch dreams of opening a gym and longs for her father’s support, Norb Wessels struggles to step out of his father’s shadow and make a name for himself.
Parental Pressures
Wessels, 25, graduated from the University of Dayton in 2016, with a degree in criminal justice studies. After graduation, he attended the University of Cincinnati College of Law where he got his law degree.
Wessels felt pressure from his father to follow in his footsteps to become an estate planning lawyer instead of his passion for becoming a criminal lawyer.
Statistics show becoming a lawyer is among the top professions that children follow in their parents’ footsteps, according to an article in the New York Times. Sons are 2.7 times more likely to follow in their father’s profession. Lawyer, doctor, legislator, and steelworker and the most passed down profession.
Wessels’s father graduated high school at the age of 15, then attended Thomas More College for undergrad. He continued his educational path by completing his degree at Chase Law School and attained a graduate degree in taxation from New York University.
Wessels’s father practices business and tax law, business contracts, mergers and acquisitions, construction law, contracts, wills, trusts, and estate, and business formation/ dissolutions, according to his website.
His father’s 25 years of law practice inspired Norb to become a lawyer. In the beginning, Norb was unsure of what specific law title he wanted. As he got further into law school, Norb realized his passion was criminal law, whereas his father is estate planning.
After he graduated from law school, Norb’s father offered him a job. Norb explained the pressure he felt from his father’s job offer.
“My father is very well-off and the money aspect was tempting enough to accept the position,” explained Wessels.
However, wondering if he could be successful on his own guided his final decision to decline the job offer.
“I decided I wanted to make it sort of my own and I know I would have lived my life wondering whether I could seriously make it on my own merit or if I was just given these opportunities because of my father,” Wessels said.
Wessels is doing just that. He works for the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office in Ohio in the municipal division. Wessels doesn’t have a 100 percent plan but knows his passion is in criminal legal prosecution and he will remain there for the rest of his life.
Wessels said his father has supported him ever since he declined the job position, while Welch’s father supports her on the soccer field and she hopes he will do the same for her career.
