Page 136 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2017

family affair
Katie Hinkel, daughter of Lee Tracy and husband Mike McLaughlin, manages Lee Tracy in Ocean Springs. The McLaughlins first became business owners with a Connie Shoe Concept store in Jackson in 1978. Later they debuted their Lee Tracy shop in Edgewater Mall in Biloxi before opening shops in two casino facilities.
“We hadn’t planned for Katie to work with us.
She was actually the one of our three children that
we never anticipated working in Mississippi,” Lee McLaughlin recalls. “She had big ideas to go elsewhere until her senior year at Ole Miss when we were offered the opportunity to open in the Gulfport Grand Casino Hotel as a second casino operation. She was home over spring break and said, ‘Can I interview with you?’ We were thrilled!”
Hinkel adds, “I did not always plan to come home and join the family business. An opportunity presented itself at just the right time as I was graduating, and the Gulf Coast pulled me back.”
She liked growing up in a family business because she would go to work with her parents and be given odd jobs in the stockroom and behind the scenes at an early age. “I learned to run a shoe wall, count down
a drawer (before computer systems did it for you)
It’s a family affair at a number of local businesses, proving that the tie that binds can be two fold.
Two of those businesses successfully merging family and work are Lee Tracy Boutique in Ocean Springs and Luckies Furniture and Bedding Warehouse in Biloxi.
story by Lynn Lofton
photos by Linda Ferrill and Katherine Swetman
and receive merchandise before the age of 10,” she remembers. “Today, I bring my own daughter, Maggie, into the store to do the same. She has aspirations to take over one day.”
There are challenges of working with family members, and both agree that the biggest one is leaving work at work. “Mike and I always talked too much business at the dinner table. With the second generation we have tried to reign in the shop talk for the sake of everyone’s sanity,” McLaughlin said. “Also, because our business is retail, we are busiest when everyone else is playing. Sometimes we have to miss out on things other parents and grandparents are free to do. It takes a great staff and a lot of compromise on the part of everyone involved.”
Hinkel says, “When you own your own business, your mind is always working on ways to improve. There have been many a family dinner that the topics revolved around business when they should have been about family matters.”
However, there are advantages of working with family members and McLaughlin lists them. “There is nothing like it! I love working with Katie,” she said. “She keeps me young, challenges me to think in new ways, and is so amazingly energetic. I sometimes
136 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • September 2017
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