Lansing Crane served his family business for over 12 years as the CEO and chairman of Crane & Co. Inc., a 213-year-old company that manufactures and sells high-security currency products, fine cotton stationery and high-performance, non-woven materials for filtration and insulation. He retired from the company in 2007 and has held board appointments with several private companies—including family-owned operations.

Public companies have a well defined corporate governance structure that makes for certain uniformity among governance practices. What about the corporate governance of private companies?

Almost a decade ago, two McDonald’s Corporation CEOs died within nine months of each other. Last year, the CEO of Deloitte Israel tragically lost his life in a plane crash. Unfortunately, such tragic events occur more often than you might think. A study conducted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business found that approximately seven CEOs of public traded companies die each year.

On March 4, the Supreme Court in Lawson v. FMR LLC held that the whistleblower protection provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) shields not only employees of publicly traded companies, but also employees of privately held contractors and subcontractors—including investment advisers, law firms, and accounting firms—who perform work for a public company.

One of the challenges unique to privately owned family businesses is that the longer they're around, the bigger the family gets. And in many cases, as the family grows, so does the number of shareholders.

Family businesses often pass ownership on to family members, of course, which means that by the third generation there can be a virtual sea of family shareholders. In order to satisfy the needs of everyone in the expanded ownership group, the business must grow and continue to be profitable.