A fourth-generation business owner, Steve Lytle has experienced firsthand the benefits and challenges of multigenerational family business. His personal mission is “to enable greatness and unleash the potential in business families and their leaders.” Like many family business leaders, Steve learned the family business from the bottom up. After college, he returned to Southern Oregon to lead Gold River Distributing, a beer and wine distributorship that he co-owned with his brother, implementing the systems and culture that enabled multiple acquisitions and organic growth of over 300%. Next, Steve moved to Portland, Oregon to succeed his father and uncle at Mt. Hood Beverage as president and CEO. There, along with his leadership team, he worked to transform the corporate culture and positively impact the bottom line, ultimately leading the organization through a successful three-way merger to create Columbia Distributing, one the largest beverage distributors in the country. Today, Steve is the principal of Clearpath Family Advisors which provides consulting, executive coaching, strategic planning, and facilitation services to multigenerational family businesses and their leaders. As a successful executive and leader with a passion and understanding of family-run businesses, Steve works with family leaders on topics that include family business vision, strategy and constitution, governance, conflict resolution, communication, generational transition, and succession planning. Steve is the immediate past Chairman of Columbia Distributing, and serves on the board of The Agnew Company, a family business holding company. He is a master graduate of Rapport Leadership International, an officer of the Evergreen Chapter of Young Presidents Organization (YPO), a board member of the Austin Family Business Program at Oregon State University, and on the Board Executive Team for Elevate Oregon. Steve also actively serves as a director on other national and local boards of both industry and community service organizations from Portland, Oregon where he lives with his wife Trese and two daughters Olivia and Chloe.