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28 | I NSIGH T • F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 6 w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m ONLINE: Click to hear Al Sass discuss how Wisconsin Spice became a major supplier of mustard to the food industry and the challenges of second generation leadership. But aer a few years, Sass felt the urge to return home to Wisconsin Spice. He went back to school to earn his MBA and rejoined the company in 2010 as director of business development. He recently took on the role of vice president of operations. He may have come home, but he also brought with him some of the lessons he learned at Kra Foods, lessons he has used to help double annual sales for Wisconsin Spice and grow the workforce by 50 percent. "I find myself constantly looking back on my time at Kra," Sass says. "ere are a lot of structural and management lessons to be learned from working in a really large company. I experienced a wide variety of people and practices, and I've been able to apply those lessons here." In many ways, he followed a path taken by his sister Sass Blustin, who planned to pursue other ambitions aer earning her food science degree, but returned to Wisconsin Spice during the recession of 2001 while she worked on her MBA at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. "It started as a project to help update the computer systems," Sass Blustin says. "I just kind of kept going, not really planning for it." In addition to the company's finances, Sass Blustin also handles information technology and human resources for Wisconsin Spice. With that many food scientists in the family, the critique of holiday meals and summer cookouts could get pretty rough, though Sass Blustin says the discussion doesn't oen focus on the food. "It's much more likely we are going to be arguing about sports," she says. "We are pretty passionate about UW- Madison sports teams." All kidding aside, Sass Blustin says she and her brother have found complementary roles at the company. "It's great that Al came on board, he likes being out front "I wasn't going to do the deal if we couldn't show a payback in a year," Sass says. "I don't want us to be paying for something we no longer do." Branching out S ass is the second generation to take the helm at Wisconsin Spice. Like his father and his older sister Caroline Sass Blustin, he is a food scientist by training. Another sister who does not work for the company is a lawyer and all are proud graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For as long as he can remember, Sass wanted to run the family business. "I think my first job was picking weeds out of the parking lot," Sass says. "I must have been about 10 or 11 years old." While in high school, he worked on the production floor and continued to work for the family business while earning his degree in food science. But interestingly enough, he would look elsewhere for his first professional position, landing a job with Kra Foods in Chicago. "ere was a time that I thought I would take a different path," he says. Hot Stuff c o n t i n u e d " There are a lot of structural and management lessons to be learned from working in a really large company. I experienced a wide variety of people and practices, and I've been able to apply those lessons here ." — Al S ass, vice president of operations for Wisconsin Spice