MCLEAN, Va. – Like many family-run companies, Mars Inc. has a lot of history behind it—more than 100 years, in fact. But that isn’t stopping the great-grandson of founder Frank Mars and son of heiress Jacqueline Mars from looking to the future, Washington Business Journal reports.

Stephen Badger, chairman of the board for Mars Inc., runs one of the biggest privately owned companies in the United States that produces some of the most popular brands in the world. For much of its history, Mars Inc. has stayed in the shadows. Badger’s mission is to shed more light onto a company that does more than chocolate.

For example, Mars. Inc. bought VCA Inc., an animal hospital chain last year. Mars also has 20% of the pet food market with its Whiskas, Eukanuba and Iams brands of cat and dog food. The company also dabbles in producing healthy cocoa and other initiatives as it diversifies beyond chocolate.

“We made a very conscious decision after quite a lot of discussion and disagreement over many years to fundamentally shift what had been a tradition for essentially 100 years, to pivot and engage the external world,” Badger said. “We’ve also recognized that there are some issues that are so significant, they warrant our participation in terms of putting ourselves into the dialogue.”

Mars Inc. has operations in 80 countries, with 140 employees at its McLean headquarters, 30,000 overall in the United States (including the global Mars Wrigley Confectionery headquarters in Chicago and Mars Wrigley Confectionery U.S. in New Jersey) and 70,000 worldwide. Badger and others on his management team hope to share the story of the company to recruit new workers and to work on initiatives like its “Sustainable in a Generation” project.