Fear lurked in the back of Jon Monson’s brain and deep in his
heart when he decided to join MV Transportation Inc. as president
and CEO in 1999.
While it’s natural to feel anxious heading into a new position,
Monson’s fears didn’t stem from questions of whether he could do
the job. They came from the act of taking the helm of a family-owned business.
“I was fearful because I had seen it on the other side, where people go to work for an entrepreneur as a CEO, and they are promised, ‘You’ll have control,’ but then when it comes down to the
brother-in-law and friend of the owner, those people can’t be
touched, and you have all sorts of issues with that,” Monson says.
MV’s founders wanted to grow the company and had tried to do
so, unsuccessfully, with a few different people. Now it was
Monson’s turn, but there was an urgency to his task.
At the time, MV — which provides bus and van transportation
services for government agencies and private entities — had about
$24 million in annual revenue and had seven offices in the Bay
Area. But as the industry experienced more consolidation, if MV
didn’t establish a national presence, it wouldn’t be able to compete
with these rollups and would get run over by its competition.