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Family pride usually motivates corporate sons to do well. "I've lived with a basic philosophy about this business all my life," says Samuel C. Johnson, 37, executive vice president of Johnson's Wax; the fourth in a family line to enter the business, young Johnson can expect higher things when his father, Chairman Herbert Fisk Johnson, 65, steps down. Exposure to the inside of a company at an early age is often a definite advantage. Motorola's Galvin accompanied his father on business trips when he was eight. Charles Gates, 44, president of Denver's Gates Rubber Co., spent schoolboy afternoons in his father's plant, on the way home got lectures from dad on the rubber business. Says General Tire's Michael O'Neil: "I was 38 years old when I was named president. And that's how many years I spent getting ready for the job."
Sons often enjoy special, frank relationships with their fathers that cut through the usual corporate rituals. Hallmark Cards' Joyce C. Hall, 73, says of Son Donald, 36, his administrative vice president: "As father and son, we can go a little further in disagreeing than anybody else and still work it out quickly." On the other hand, this very familiarity can make it more difficult for the son to win non-family recognition of his talents. "No matter what you do, some people will think that being the son of the boss is why you got there," says State Farm's Rust. "Often that same question weighs on your own mind."
Thicker Than Blood. Many a son turns out to have a better grasp of the changing business world than his father had. Hotel Corp. of America's President Roger P. Sonnabend, 38, wrote a thesis at Harvard Business School on how to save money through group purchases and sales of hotels, sold the theory to Father Abe—and has made it work. David Schwartz, 62, who built Jonathan Logan Inc. into Seventh Avenue's biggest women's wear firm and last year stepped up from president to chairman to make room for Son Richard, 26, says: "When I made an acquisition, I did it by feel. But we're too big now. It's my son who says, 'We don't buy anything unless it is doing X amount of business.' "
Red ink is a lot thicker than blood, and it is a rare father in modern business who is willing to turn over his company to a less-than-able son. Says Chairman Willard F. Rockwell, 77, of Son Willard Jr., 51, who was named president and chief executive of Pittsburgh's Rockwell Manufacturing Co. last month: "I knew he deserved it. But from the beginning, if I hadn't thought he could do the job, I'd have given him a bundle of money, sent him off to be a playboy, and hired somebody who could." The surprising thing about the corporate sons is that so many prefer the hard work of the executive suite to the soft alternative. This pleases the fathers, and most of them do not try to make it easy for their sons. Among Heinz executives, at President H.J. Heinz H's wish, Jack Heinz is treated just like any other trainee. With that name, of course, the main difference is that he will be expected to do a lot better than the others.