New Family Business Center board members
The Family Business Center welcomed three new advisory board members (from left): Erin Buddig, Ashley Martin, and Michael Schupp.
Three new members joined the Family Business Center board of advisors in May 2024 to help elevate the center's vision of creating a community for mid-sized family businesses regardless of location.
The new board members represent three different generations of family businesses headquartered in Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois.
"Expanding our board with these new members brings new perspectives on our work,” said advisory board chair Nolan Burke of Burke Beverage, Inc. “The board seeks to underscore that we support mid-sized businesses regardless of where families or their headquarters are based. Loyola FBC is a community resource that is not reserved for times of transition but for the stability and harmony of the business and the family behind the business."
Erin Buddig
Erin Buddig is in the fourth generation of the family behind Carl Buddig & Company, a food manufacturing company based in Homewood, Illinois. Her mother’s family was a founding member of the Family Business Center and her father’s company continues the tradition of membership and leadership.
She is a director for Young Life and the assistant coach for a high school girls lacrosse team. She is also a graduate of the Family Business Center's Stewardship Institute.
“I grew up a part of Loyola’s FBC, which was founded the year I was born,” Buddig said. “I joined the board because I want to support those with careers outside of the family business who seek ways to support the business.”
Buddig earned her undergraduate degree at St. Ambrose University in Iowa and has a masters in social work from Loyola University Chicago.
Ashley Martin
Ashley Martin is a fifth generation family member and president of NIBCO, a manufacturing company based in Elkhart, Indiana. Martin increased the visibility of professional women in the Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Piping (PHCP) and the Industrial Pipe, Valves, and Fittings (PVF) supply chain by co-founding the American Supply Association Women in Industry group.
She recently discovered the Family Business Center and is engaging as a board member and as the newest member of the group’s "GenNow" hybrid Peer Advisory Group.
“I look forward to connecting with families who run businesses in other industries,” Martin said. “I know there are synergies we can share.”
She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and her masters from Southern Methodist University in Texas.
Michael Schupp
Michael Schupp is in the third generation of the family behind the auto industry’s L&L Products based in Romeo, Michigan. He lives in Colorado and serves as both Family Council President and Owner's Council Chair.
He has been helping his company transition from an owner-operator business, and he wants to keep the business privately owned and successful. Outside of that work, he is self-employed in real estate. He completed the Family Business Center’s Next Generation Leadership Institute (NGLI) in January and saw service on the center advisory board as a way to sustain connection with the Family Business Center.
“It is exciting to plug into a new way to serve the family business community,” Schupp said. ”I am happy to join.”