ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank several people who helped me research and write this book. My research assistants Sarah Mader, Anne-Katherine Toronto, Mark Malmgren, Peter Fuller, and Luke Webster provided me with much of the data used to compare families in the United States and across the world, and they also put together an annotated bibliography of various family studies related to family capital. Adam Turville and my son, Justin Dyer, did much of the work putting the data together and doing the statistical analyses found in chapter 1. Without their help, it would have been impossible to see the impact of family capital on company start-ups and success. Our department secretarial team of Sophie Poulsen, Kesley B. Powell, and Katy Milagro Nottingham helped to produce many of the tables and figures in the book. Aaron Shelley collected most of the data regarding the family histories presented in chapter 3. I spent many hours with Aaron discussing the role family structure plays in developing family capital, which helped to sharpen my thinking. My brother Jeffrey Dyer provided me with feedback on several chapters, and Aislin Powell Dyer, my daughter-in-law and an excellent editor, helped make the book substantially more readable. (Due to the efforts of several of my family members, this book represents how family capital can be leveraged successfully.) I would also like to acknowledge the important editorial and substantive contributions of Stephen Cranney, PhD, and Joseph Webb and the support of Christopher Robbins, who found my arguments compelling enough to publish the book. And I would like to recognize the Ballard Center for Economic Self-Reliance and the Marriott School of Business for providing much of the research funding needed for the book.