Not long after John Tocci took the helm of the family business from his father in 1985, he saw an unsavory shift in the industry that made him consider the unthinkable: walking away from the company his grandfather had founded in 1922, Tocci & Sons, now Tocci Building Cos., Woburn, Mass.
"I never imagined the day would come that I would discourage my three sons from following in my footsteps, but somewhere after 1994, I had become completely disheartened by the lack of collaboration and how litigious the building process had become. I felt the industry had lost all its nobility, and I wanted no part of it for me or my sons," Tocci says.