In The News: Sharing Ownership and Creating a Market / Producing a Competitive Advantage / Leaving a Legacy
July 11, 2007

This press release announces that Environmental Liability Management, Inc. (ELM), a 50-employee environmental engineering and consulting firm headquartered in Princeton, NJ, sold their first block of stock to an ESOP on June 22, 2007:

“The Plan has two objectives,” Mr. Fallon indicated. “First, to reward all employees by giving them an opportunity to share in company ownership, and secondly to create a market for stock held by present owners without having to go to outside interests.” “The result of the Plan,” he continued, “should also increase employee incentives to maintain quality and increase productivity, as well as help retain people and provide them with long-term retirement benefits.”

This article talks about “the 13th-biggest private company in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky”, 100% employee-owned Messer Construction Co. The ESOP includes about 400 of Messer's 900 employees.

“Bob Wehling, the retired Procter & Gamble Co. executive who is a member of Messer's board of directors, calls the ESOP and the culture it has produced a competitive advantage. "There's a pride in working there," Wehling says. "And they give a lot of responsibility to younger people. That attracts a lot of the best engineering talent."

Strange says the company has found its market niche, which once included a far-flung network but now has consolidated to eight offices, with Nashville the most remote from Cincinnati.

And to him, that market niche includes much more than clients and profit margins.

"This was an industry that traditionally treated human beings like a commodity: Hire them when you like, fire them when you like," he says. "We wanted to own the right to have our voices heard. This notion that individual employees can have a voice is something that is so powerful."”

This article discusses the Garden State Mortgage ESOP, which is one of the first mortgage lender-broker ESOPs:

“Aranda, a Wisconsin farmer's son who founded the company in 1991, saw the move as a way to divest himself. But he also had higher motives.

"I like that it's very egalitarian," said the 48-year-old Leonia resident and president of the lender. "I thought it was a very healthy way to run a company, where people can feel they're rewarded commensurate with their participation. The best legacy would be for me to leave the company to its employees."”