The chores of public outreach and accounting have taken him away from operations and made him more dependent on his worthy staff. If you compare the scenarios of being public and being private, the public company requires a whole lot more of your time. There's much more reporting and different types of accounting. A private company doesn't receive the same scrutiny as a public company, so everything that you do is exposed. It's a lot different.
Investor relations means less time for customer relations.
Before, I was more involved in the mid-level decision process than I am now. A common criticism of publicly held firms is that they are slaves to quarterly earnings reports and that strategic future investment for the corporation is diverted to dividends to satisfy investors on a quarterly basis. But McLain hasn't yet had to deal with that problem. You have your annual reports and your proxies. You will have advertising and promotion expenses, and that affects your cash flow.