Don Freeman Dropping His CEO Title

Continuing a family tradition, Donald S. Freeman Jr. will step aside July 1 as CEO of Freeman, one of the two largest general service contractors in the tradeshow industry, as two other family members move up.

Freeman, 70, will continue as chairman. His son-in-law, Joe Popolo, now president, will become CEO and his daughter, Carrie Freeman Parsons, will become vice chairman in addition to her current duties as chief marketing officer.

"These new assignments reflect a carefully planned transition that has been taking place over several years," Freeman said.

The transition is also probably very similar to the last one, 31 years ago, when he took over as chairman and CEO when his father, D.S. "Buck" Freeman, died in 1977.

While Popolo and Parsons may be taking on more day-to-day responsibilities for the company that supplies multiple services to more than 10,000 tradeshows and events each year, Freeman will continue to be intimately involved in the business.

"I don't know that you're going to see anything a lot different," Parsons said. "As far as my dad's visibility, we don't expect that is going to go down."

Freeman officials said Freeman will continue to take part in all significant financial decisions, working with major clients and representing Freeman at important industry events and company meetings.

At the same time the company made the announcement about Freeman, Popolo and Parsons, it revealed two other moves involving top-level managers. John O'Connell will move from executive vice president and chief operating officer to president (at the same time, moving from Boston to Dallas) and Jeff Price will move from executive vice president to chief operating officer of the exposition services division.

Parsons said all these transitions are part of a plan that has been in the works for years.

"There are very few raised eyebrows at Freeman," she added.

Parsons said her father started thinking about this 10 years ago, "and we started planning it four years ago."

Freeman began his career with the family-owned Freeman Decorating in 1964 when he became manager of the company's Des Moines, Iowa, office. He was named president of the company, started by his father in 1927, in 1972.

Parsons said there are no plans to change the ownership structure of the company, which is currently in the hands of members of the Freeman family and its employees by way of an employee stock ownership plan that has been in place for more than 25 years.

"We're going to stay a private company, and we've notified employees of that," she added.

Freeman said, "Employee ownership has been an integral part of the company's family culture and enables us to make long-term decisions that are to the benefit of our customers."

Parsons represents the third generation of her family to work in the business.

"As trite as this might sound, I couldn't imagine being anywhere else," she said.

When she was young, family vacations were planned around major tradeshows or company events, Parsons said.

"And I always worked for Freeman during the summers," she added. "People in the company were really our extended family."