The family

Operators first. Capital second.

Family offices are usually built around capital. Ours grew out of operating companies.

For more than forty years, members of the Kuelbs family have started businesses, bought them, sold them, chaired them, rebuilt them and occasionally watched ideas fail. That experience shapes the way we look at a company today.

A business is never only a collection of financial statements. It is employees who chose to spend part of their careers there. Customers who trust its name. Years of decisions, relationships and reputation. And for many founders, it is inseparable from a large part of who they are. We know that because we have lived it ourselves.

Two generations of YPO,
earned through different companies.

YPO membership is not inherited. Each candidate must be the top operating leader of a company that meets defined size thresholds and is vetted by the organization itself.

  • John A. KuelbsChrome Specialties
  • Nick KuelbsLatin Gin

The principals

Operators
John A. Kuelbs

John A. Kuelbs

Founder · Operator · Investor

John Kuelbs grew up the seventh of eleven children in Minnesota, in a family with no money and a small engine shop in the garage — snowblowers and mowers for the neighbors. He arrived in Texas in a 1977 Firebird with a frozen engine block, started Texas Harley-Davidson, and in 1984 founded Chrome Specialties with his brother.

The businesses that followed rarely looked alike: a community bank, an anime studio, a Montana ski mountain, insurance, film, consumer products, biotechnology and a gin. Across all of them his preference has stayed remarkably consistent — back capable people, understand what makes the business work, and structure capital so the people closest to the company can keep doing what they do best.

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Nick Kuelbs

Nick Kuelbs

Operator · Venture Investments

Nick Kuelbs is co-founder and president of Latin Gin and leads venture investing for Kuelbs Family Office. He began his career around the family's operating businesses, including working in digital strategy at Funimation before its sale to Sony, and later helped build Masterpiece Spirits.

Together with Ivania Sher and John A. Kuelbs, Nick built Latin Gin around a combination of Latin botanicals and Italian distilling heritage. The brand now reaches more than 20 countries and 2,500 premium accounts, with four expressions distilled in the Italian Alps at a family-run distillery whose history dates to 1906. Forbes named Nick to its 30 Under 30 list in 2024 for his work building the company.

At Kuelbs Family Office he focuses on venture and growth investments, particularly companies being built around technology, industrial innovation and ambitious new markets. He is a member of YPO Global One and splits his time between Texas and South Florida. He also has interests in the equestrian and real-estate industries, including Royal Oak Equestrian and Wellington Property Partners.

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