About Lone Oak

The roots of this unique firm go back to when Jim Lieske was the CEO of his family’s large and complex business.

He was a young and inexperienced executive, the organization he was leading was immature but growing, and along the way, he developed a strong desire for a “trusted adviser” to help him through the many tough and sometimes lonely times he faced as a leader.

Running and operating the business was not always easy, but compared to successfully creating and getting everyone on board with the long-term growth path for the company, the day-to-day operation of the business was actually much easier. As the business grew closer to an inevitable critical transition point, and as circumstances became more complicated and challenging, his need and desire for such a valued adviser only increased. But, unfortunately, that trusted and valued advisor never appeared.

Eventually, the business was sold, and in the aftermath of those experiences, Lieske purposely and dramatically changed the path of his career. As part of his transition, he consciously vowed to use his previous experiences to help companies and the leaders of those companies successfully get through situations like the ones he’d survived. He committed to creating a firm to help companies and leaders grow by being that trusted advisor to others that he wished he would have had, but didn’t, when he was a similar leader. Lone Oak Group was formed, and it has continued to operate with the sole purpose and goal of helping client companies grow and succeed.

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What’s in a Name?

The oak tree is strong, tough, solid, dependable, and enduring.

For hundreds of years, the oak tree has served as a symbol of strength, courage, independence, wisdom, and endurance. A single look at a majestic old oak conjures up feelings of strength and character.

Like countless other European immigrants, my ancestors came to America from Germany in the 1850s. They homesteaded land near Henderson, Minnesota. One parcel of land originally settled by the first Lieskes in the 1850s was a small 40-acre plot of bare land – bare except for a solitary white oak tree. Those 40 acres became a Lieske family farmstead named Lone Oak Farm.

About 120 years later, in 1975, at the age of 21 and encouraged by my father, I bought that very piece of land when it came up for sale. The tree was still there, proudly standing its post. Not long after I bought it, a forester friend of mine from college was visiting and noticed the unique tree. He was very taken by it and wanted to determine its age. By boring the old oak, he determined that the tree was more than 200 years old, meaning the tree was already more than 75 years old when my ancestors first settled the land in the 1850s.

The tree on Lone Oak Farm was not then, nor is it now, either tall or very impressive-looking. White oaks do not grow to be as tall or majestic as red oaks or burr oaks, but even for a white oak, this one was and still is quite small in stature. Despite the fact that it grows in very fertile soil with access to ample moisture, it stands no taller than 40 to 45 feet tall. The tree is proportionately shaped, but its branches do not span broadly, and its main trunk is not very large. It actually is rather short and squatty, but very “tough”-looking.

Imagining its history makes it easy to figure out why that old oak looks the way it does. It was probably the only tree within a mile, and since it grew on the very edge of the then-great prairie, it must have been constantly exposed to all of the elements the prairie had to offer, including fierce winds, fire, and draught. To even survive, much less grow to be more than 200 years old, that tree must have endured daily stress and strain. That little old tree still embodies the spirit of the people who settled and tamed that corner of the wild prairie’s edge. The tree is tough, it has been twisted by the weather, and it has survived and thrived by being strong, rugged, and persistent.

Oak trees have a curious nature. Legend says that, as a deciduous tree, the root system of an oak tree is a reflection and mirror image of the tree above ground. Whether that’s exactly true or not, we can be assured that the roots of that tree have always been deep and strong, and that they were drawing nutrients and water from soil that sustained that tree long before any Lieske set foot on that ground and called it home. Imagining that those roots extend more than 30 to 40 feet into the earth, anchoring it in place, and making the tree able to withstand the wild elements on the edge of a windswept prairie is impressive. That wonderful image is a great reminder about from where we come and reminds us that the seasons of challenges and growth we have survived are the roots that allow us to endure in difficult times and thrive in others.

It is with all of that in mind – the history of that old tree, the part that it played in my life, and all of the spirit and attitude that I think the tree possesses – that I decided to name this firm Lone Oak. It is my hope and expectation that our firm embodies all of the positive characteristics that contribute to the character of that old oak tree and that we serve our clients accordingly.

– Jim Lieske, founder of Lone Oak and one of the Lieskes who at one time was lucky enough to own Lone Oak Farm.