At age nineteen, high school diploma in hand, Leonard Gentine knew two things: he wished to own a family group business that would pass from generation to generation, and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Dolores Becker, a girl he’d met on a blind date.

For Leonard, life didn’t prove that simple.

This biography, told through the viewpoint of four generations from the Gentine family, places the reader in Leonard’s shoes as he advances from son to old age and discovers life’s about Treated Like Family: How an Entrepreneur and His ‘Employee Family’ Built Sargento, a Billion-Dollar Cheese Company foundational lessons. On the way, he endures outstanding debts, disappointments, and a collection of smaller businesses, all with Dolores at his side. It’s an inspirational story of perseverance, personal integrity, and a mind-set of always doing the proper thing-as unpleasant as that may be in the short term.

TREATED LIKE FAMILY details the introduction of Sargento-a nationally acknowledged cheese company and household name. At exactly the same time, it’s a timeless story that showcases the importance of the individual and what sort of family united in one purpose within the proper culture is definitely unstoppable.

Tom Faley invites the reader in to the lives from the Gentine family members and the women and men they hired, deftly weaving a story grounded in over 180 interviews-the collective voices of the business’s workers, retirees, and friends.

TREATED LIKE FAMILY offers a rare glance in to the creative mind of an innovator and entrepreneur and underscores the benefits for all those when we keep our humanity toward each other: When one person motivates others to draw together, sometimes facing unspeakable odds, he’s able not merely to change their lives but to improve history.