While many say their coworkers are family figuratively, four employees of one Jefferson City business mean it literally.
Bernie Fechtel, owner of Fechtel Beverage & Sales Inc., and his three children - Morgan, Andy and Maggie - all work for the family business. But it isn't just two generations of Fechtels that have been involved.
Bernie's grandfather Ben Fechtel started the business before Prohibition of the 1920s.
Prohibition wasn't great for a business that distributes alcohol, so Ben worked in trucking and owned a general store until the amendment was repealed in 1933. Then Ben and his son - Bernie's father, Charlie - moved the company from Osage County to Jefferson City.
Bernie joined the company full time after college in 1980 and purchased it with his wife, Sabrina, in 1985.
"Then the kids kind of grew up in the business and worked here summers and things like that," Bernie said. "Then they, one by one, came back from where they did their studies and joined us, so we've got the whole family here now."
While his children may have grown up in the business, Bernie did it first.
"Our original warehouse was down in the Millbottom area, pretty much next door to where The Millbottom (event center) is now," Bernie said. "So growing up there, you went over to the roundhouse and watched the locomotives come in off the railroad and stuff like that. You just sort of grew up in the business."
Bernie and Sabrina gave their children the same chance to been involved in the business from a young age, at least where they could - after all, distributing beer comes with an age requirement.
The children had summer jobs like folding T-shirts, tending grass around the warehouse or checking in drivers.
"It never was one of those things that was forced on anybody," Bernie said. "We wanted them to know they could do whatever they wanted to do, and we certainly wanted to provide for their success. But it's really a proud moment that all of them decided that this is where they wanted to be."
While the three Fechtel children all returned to the family business, they were able to do so in positions where they can use their individual strengths and talents.
Oldest sibling Morgan left the company for a while before coming back. She now claims the title of controller, working with accounting, inventory and other data-related jobs.
"It just makes you appreciate the different thing that happen in a family business, than not a family business," Morgan said. "It makes you appreciate that you always know that one of these people has your back at the end of the day. I think that's my favorite thing. You know these people will be there through thick and thin, no matter what happens."
Andy, who falls in the middle of his two sisters and works for the company as a sales manager and brand specialist, said there's always been a mixture of business and family life.
"It's always just a part of your life, and you didn't know any different when you grow up in a family business," Andy said. "Maybe we'd go down to the lake and deliver a keg, and then we have dinner down there or something. Our lives always kind of centered around what was needed, and our family vacations, we'd look at warehouses and breweries and those kind of things."
Andy said it always felt like the company was part of who they were as a family.
"It really does become kind of ingrained in your DNA after four generations that we're beer people, and that's what we do every day and that's what we love to do," he said.
Rounding out the team as the youngest, Maggie remembers when her siblings were old enough to work at the warehouse and she wasn't.
"I was sad and I couldn't wait to do that, and then going off to college when they were finished and hearing all their stories of getting to work together, I couldn't wait to do that too," Maggie said.
Maggie now serves as the company's HR manager but also dips into other areas of office work.
Bernie is glad to let his children handle a lot of the business these days and recognizes how well they fit together as a team.
"These kids are so much smarter than I'm ever going to be, and with their expertise, it's uncanny how in this organization, their skills are so complementary," Bernie said. "It's so exciting for my wife and I to see that their talents are complementary because as long as they can kind of rise above the typical family issues, there's no question in my mind they can continue to be successful because they have such good skillsets."
While Bernie is full of praise for his children, they're quick to turn it right back around and give him recognition for how they were raised. They bring those values into the business.
"I think inside and outside of work, he's taught us to be good human beings," Morgan said. "You treat the people that you work with every day like family, and you treat the people that are in your family like family. It doesn't matter because you spend more time with the people at work. At the end of the day, what we do is sell beer, but you've got to be a good human being to make a good business."
All three of the Fechtel children recognize the opportunity they've had to learn from their father throughout the years.
"When you're working with your dad, he's taught you everything - how to walk, how to drive a forklift," Andy said. "We'll be sitting there, and we'll hold our head the same way or have our legs the same way. If you think of it in this sense, I've had almost 35 years of employee development from my boss, starting from a young age."
The whole Fechtel family is involved in the Jefferson City community with various boards and organizations, something their father encouraged and has done himself.
Andy said while they are in a unique situation, growing up and working together, they are far from alone in Jefferson City.
"The lifeblood of our local economy is small family business, and our same story can be played out at the Naughts or Farmers or the Vogels over at Coke and the Scheppers family, our competitors over at Anheuser-Busch," Andy said. "We say it's unique, but it's the same thing and it's very strong in our community."