Unlike many small-business owners, Karl Alm had a succession plan from the day he launched his septic pumping enterprise in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. “I started Alm & Son as soon as I knew I was having a son,” Alm says. That was in 1994. Wyatt Alm, 24, now works alongside his 62-year-old father.
In the beginning, Karl Alm says he didn’t have much more than the name.
“I bought an old truck with a blown rear end. I nursed it home and put a new rear end in it,” he recalls. “It was enough to get me going. I started on
