Episode Transcript
Hello my friends. This is Brett Kling of the EO Podcast Network and host of the ESOP podcast. We have a fun episode of the Owner to Owner podcast for you today, host Jesse Tyler. Invited previous podcast guests, Sarah Lamo of Admix and Tyson Hendrickson of Pacific Steel and Recycling to come back on the podcast to talk about Corey Rosen and John Case's most recent book called Owner. Reinventing companies, capitalism and who owns what, which came out in September, 2022. What Jesse didn't tell Sarah and Tyson is that they would be joined mid episode by very special guest, Corey Rosen, who has played such a critical role in growing employee ownership in the United States and around the world for more than 40 years. I wanna express our appreciation to Corey Rosen, as well as his co-author, John Case. To Jesse's guest, Sarah and Tyson, and to Jesse Tyler himself for coming up with a fun way to surprise his guests on the podcast. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to the Owner to Owner podcast with your host, Jesse Tyler, part of the EO Podcast Network. Hi, listeners of the Owner Owner Podcast. It's great to have you back again. I'm Jesse Tyler and I work at Hypertherm Associates. I've been here, I just celebrated my 16th year, which is wonderful. 15 years participating in our employee owner. Plan and I am very enthusiastic. About employee ownership, any form of worker equity, but I work at an ESOP and I like to share the stories of the ESOPs and bring this to a larger audience. So the goal is of the Owner to Owner podcast is to have discussions about a wide range of ownership, experience, and culture topics to bring more insight. Into the individual owner experience. We'll often talk to and feature rank and file workers voices you would never hear. The goal of this episode is to hear two employee owners and friends and prior guests on different episodes of the Owner Owner Podcast. Have them discuss Corey Rosen and John Case's, new book Ownership, reinventing Companies Capital. And who owns what. It's a great read and it elevates the employee ownership conversation and brings some insight from different models and different countries and has a big fan of the National Center for Employee Ownership and wanting to amplify, which is what this podcast is all about. Bring the voices, spread the audience in form. We're excited to have Tyson Hendrickson from Pacific. And Sarah Moj from Admix Back again, so I want to have them introduce themselves. What I'd like to do is always have the disclaimer that we are recording this between three very busy manufacturing companies. The audio may or may not be ideal, but hopefully listeners will take that as authenticity. If there's any hiccups now you can hear a little bit of the, uh, machining in the background in, in my building. And that's all I appreciate everyone just rolling with that. So, to get us started, Sarah, could you introduce yourself to our listeners and share a little bit about yourself? That'd be great. Absolutely. So hi everyone. My name is Sarah Lamo. I'm an inside sales engineer for Admix, which is an employee-owned company, 100% employee owned. We've been 100% employee owned since 2017, but we originally sold to an ESOP in 2001, so we've been an ESOP for over 20 years now. As I said, I'm an inside sales engineer here at Admix, so we manufacture inline and in. Mixing equipment for industrial manufacturers. Our equipment's used for anything from candies to food, to cosmetics, to chemicals, and yeah, it's been a wild ride. I've been here for about two years now, and before Admix I. This is my first real career job. So before Admix I had done a lot of stuff in retail and customer service, so I did a lot of work in restaurants and I also worked in the lab at Anheuser-Busch for a few summers. So that was my other career experience in, in a company that was not an employee-owned company versus now where I am here at Admix. So happy to be here and excited for the rest of the show. Awesome. Appreciate you coming back, Tyson, a little bit about yourself with the listeners please. Yeah, hi everybody and thanks again Jesse, for the invite. It's always, always fun to hang out. So my name's Tyson Hendrickson. My, my official title is Training and Development Manager for Pacific Steel and Recycling. So, Kind of what our, our employee ownership story is. You know, we started the ownership process actually back in 1989 when we started to, to buy back, you know, shares from, from the Thebus family, the founding family, and then we became a hundred percent employee owned in 1998. So we're, we're a pretty mature esop, ESOP company, but it's, it's been awesome to. Again, be a part of passing it from one generation of employee owners to the next and, and feeling like we have that responsibility to carry the torch for, for that next group going forward. As far as kind of what I do, it's it, that's always a fun question and I think both of you can probably relate to that. Cuz as an employee owner, it's, you know, again, you have the, a title of training development manager, but then you also have maybe 20 other. That, that you're gonna be wearing. And that's, that's the power of employee ownership too though, as well. It's if whatever the, whatever the job is, if, if you're asked for that, then you know, and it can help bring value to your team and, and the company, then, you know, then you're wanting to do that. But a lot of the stuff for me is really focused on the culture side of, of employee ownership, so that can get me into leadership development, to helping spearhead our continuous improvement kind of programs within the company to give our people a platform to share ideas and, and, and make things better for, for all of us. And dabble in some onboarding with new hires as well on the ownership side of stuff. So we can help people hopefully, really see the value of ownership earlier in their career as opposed to having to wait 20 years to see that and, and a few other things. So, and I'm calling out of Great Falls, Montana. That's, that's where we're based out of our headquarters at, of Great Falls. So thank you guys. That's great. Yeah, it's great to have you both aboard and you, you mentioned the onboarding, the hats, and I was just sort of smiling. I've actually used, if it helps you at all in a presentation, I've actually used a picture of an incredibly long hat rack as a single image with no words to describe employee ownership. And I think that, you know, when you touched on that, I think that it's, it is the, it is the worker's life of many hats. To, to, to make it all flow. So it's, it's, it's fun to talk about that. So I wanna jump in with a couple questions. Been a very, the first one is, what is the same or different working at an ESOP versus a non esop? Well, this grew out of my own interest in certainly enjoying the cupcakes and the gatherings and the bright side of a energetic employee owner. But also I find really curious, you know, what are some of the harder parts, what are some different parts? And I found this question. Be an opportunity to, to just call it out. So tends to be that employee owners are pretty enthusiastic about it. And so instead of, you know, what's good or bad and so much as what's different, so that's somebody listening. The ultimate goal of the podcast, you know, the broad umbrella is, is amplifying ownership. A specific part tucked into that is, you know, maybe somebody is listening who's thinking of. To their employees and has that in mind. And starting what can be a long process and maybe here's a little bit of their workers in your voices. And so to kind of go directly to them, I started asking this question just informally and and on the podcast as well. So, Sarah, if you wanna kick us off, what's the theme or different working at an es? Versus a non-employee owned company. Sure. As I said, I have a pretty limited experience working at a non ESOP company as this is my first career. But when I was working at Anheuser-Busch, I mean there's a huge culture difference between working at a non ESOP and working for an ESOP at Admix, I'm the chair of our ownership crew, so I've been involved in culture conversations since day one, and I knew before I even accepted the job at ad. That culture was gonna be something that's very important to me in the job that I'm looking for. I noticed at Anheuser-Busch, while it was unionized, so employees had a little bit of say, a lot of that union still catered towards Anheuser-Busch as a company and. People just, it, it, people weren't, they didn't take ownership of their job. I, I often saw throughout the day, like I worked in the lab and I often saw people, if it's close to the end of the shift and there's a task they don't wanna do, I'm leaving it till the next because I just, I wanna get outta here and go home to my family where it really matters. I'm just here for a nine to five and I'm just here for the benefits cuz it's Anheuser Bush. Whereas working at an employee-owned company, you'll never see that. You say you see people staying late just to get things done so that we can be more profitable and to make things easier. So that's the number one difference that I've noticed being at an employee-owned company. But it's also the pride people take in their work. Working at Admix, working for a manufacturing company, I came in, I have a chemistry degree. This was never anything that I thought I would end up in. And even when I was initially offered the job, I was very much on the fence because I was looking for a chemistry job. I was looking for a job, working in a lab, doing analytical work, and this was not that by a long shot. However, the benefits through the ESOP that were provided to me were way better than any other entry level job that I was looking for at the time, even in chemistry and being a sales job. I was surprised by that, but I said, you know, Give it a chance. Let's see what this has to offer. And worse comes to worse. I try something else out. But this employee-owned thing intrigued me right off the bat and as soon as I came in, that culture was different. There's people talking, like you said, there's the cupcakes, there's the food, but there's also the education. People taking ownership of that education, learning about financial literacy, learning about what ownership really. And trying to do things every day to help out their fellow co-owners and make us a better place to work. It's been the ride of a lifetime to learn all about this, and I'm excited to see where it goes. So I don't have a whole lot of experience at a non ESOP company, but there's a lot of things ESOP companies do where you just can't find anywhere else. So that's great. That's great. And I think, you know, ownership is a long-term. And your shares build over time and your tenure and all of that. I personally find some of the more fascinating perspectives are our folks brand new to ownership. I recently interviewed a coworker, Kelsey, who works out in in the field, in sales in Vancouver, and she's been with us I think by the time I recorded it, maybe nine months. And it's just amazing cuz even in the first couple weeks when you ask people what ownership means to them, even though they're not technically participating, they can have an eloquent and an. That's almost indistinguishable from somebody like, you know, 11 years for Tyson or 16 for me. So I'm always cheering for the new voices of ownership. So, so never step back because you're new, all the voices are important. Tyson, for you, what's the same or different, you know, what's, what's really looking at the difference for you working at, you know, Pacific Seal as an ESOP for the lasted 11 years. If you look back to your career before then, so I didn't touch on, so if I was as far as non ESOP kind of work experience, I also dabbled in the restaurant industry for, that was actually probably six years at a human resources for a franchise group that was in casual dining. And if I'm, if I'm at least comparing the two, you know, This was a good question. We're just like, well, what's the same? I mean, at the end of the day, we're still in the business of business, you know? I mean, and so from that standpoint, it's profit is important to us just as much as I feel like, you know, anybody else, right? It's adding customer value to making sure that we're, we're taking care of our customers, take, you know, whatever. I, I think some of those goals are the same, I think. What Sarah touched on. I, I think the key difference between a non ESOP and an ESOP is really the means of how we get there. You know, it's what do we feel like is the, is the foundation and the building blocks to maximize our profit, you know, and, and the focus isn't necessarily profit in and of itself. You know, it's, it's really, it's, it comes, it's through the people first and, and the environment that we give our people. I think when you're giving ownership to your people, That in itself is, is seeing, it's seeing people in a completely different lens. You know, where we're saying, you know what, yeah, we're gonna give you ownership, we're gonna give you a stake in this company because we believe that you're more than just like a worker bee. You're capable of being more than that, right? And, and it's just pulling that kind of maximum potential, I think, out of people. And, and I can relate. So from that standpoint, you know, again, from an non-ESOP company, I think it's very easy for, you can clock in, clock out and you know, and you know, you don't necessarily have someone that's, that's pushing you to be even more and really to kind of bring out again, that. The, the best version of yourself where an employee-owned company sees, sees that potential where maybe you don't see it day one or year one, cuz you come from, from a non ESOP background. But it's, no, your voice matters. You're, oh, and guess what? You probably have ideas to make a process better. You know, and you hear a manager say that where your own boss could be like, Hey, I'm not the one who's doing the process. You're closest to it. What do you think we should do here? That's, that's a complete shift in, and I. How ESOP companies kind of manage people and it's, it's much more participatory as, as Sarah said, whether it's through financial literacy and, and sharing more from that standpoint or other stuff. So that's great. Yeah. That's great from both of you. I appreciate that. That's the insight that we're looking for. I think one way I've said it, if, if it works for you both, is that I think in the good times, you pointed other people, you did this, I saw you do that. You're leading us forward when things get hard as as counterintuitive, Likely sounds, which I'll own. I think it's the most interesting time to work at an ESOP is when things get hard because people are more likely to point at themselves and say, okay, what else can I do? What else can we do? How can our team adjust? You know, our team, my team and learning developed, just lost a very talented teammate to an opportunity that would anyone should have said yes to, that she had earned somewhere else. An incredible promotion. And it's like, okay. Then we say our. And we pull in tight, we look at ourselves and we look at each other and say, okay, how are we gonna get through our commitments with losing one of our superstars? And that's, you know, so it, it pulled it in. So I appreciate your insights. So I wanted to have a little bit of fun on the podcast and I hope that Sarah and Tyson, you're not too annoyed with me, that Corey Rosen is joining us for the rest of the ride. I thought it would be a little bit of fun. Very, maybe a little, little bit of humorous, a little bit of humor, a little bit. A low key. Gotcha for you with three friends that correspond quite a bit with Corey and have gotten his advice and he's helped Hypertherm with different insights and advice and we just like to talk about ownership. So Corey, welcome aboard to the owner. To Owner. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks. Thanks, Jesse. Thanks everybody. So what I wanna do is go through one more question before we start to talk about the book, and then John Case wasn't able to join us today, but I have a statement from him really to share with you and the listeners. So when we'll get to that, those things later. But what I wanted to do is start again with Sarah with the great question. In employee ownership community, and then go Tyson and then to Cory. What does ownership mean to you? This is the, the loaded question, right? Yeah. Ownership means to me more than anything, and I, I've said it from day one. It it's, it's that, what's the word I'm looking for, that comfort and just knowing that I'm gonna be taken care of, that my work every day, it, it's not just compensated in my salary, but I'm gonna be able to retire. A decent chunk that I will feel comfortable with. Now I come from, you know, very lower middle class roots. Both my parents have had to work, you know, my entire life. And when I was in my teens, my parents ended up getting divorced and my mother has had a very, very hard time, you know, housing, three kids, feeding three kids, and then, you know, try kind of starting her career all over and, and having to find a. And watching her struggle through all that and seeing her now, like really starting to worry about her retirement. She's edging up on, you know, her mid fifties and getting closer to that retirement time and she's not sure when she's gonna be able to retire, how comfortably she'll be able to retire, especially with social security looking the way it is. She's very stressed about those things. Me going into the workforce, I was really scared cuz I'm like, you know, I wanna be a mom, I wanna have a family. And I, I just, I don't know how I'm gonna be able to make it all happen between paying off my school loans, buying a house in this economy, trying to raise children and still make a savings so that I can retire at a reasonable age, not when I'm 80, and then actually be able to enjoy retirement. And as I said before, one. Biggest reasons I accepted this job, despite it being out of my wheelhouse, was because of the esop. I saw it as, you know, okay, maybe this is a chance for me to start to build that generational wealth that my family's had such a hard time building until now. And the more and more I've learned about it, the more and more I've felt. Empowered by it because it, it really truly gives me that vehicle to have some stability later in life and that that's everything. That is absolutely everything, especially the way this economy is right now. It, it's a scary time with capitalism the way we have it right now. Cuz Corey, I love how in your book. Talked about, we're not trying to abolish capitalism, we're trying to make more capitalists, and that's exa. It is truly exactly what we need. Because I've always said up until I read this book, like I hate capitalism. I hate how it is because it's only the few who succeed and the rest of us who are doing the work, the day-to-day work, don't get to see any of the profits of it. We work till the day we die, and it feels like we're just workforces for these CEOs who get all the money where. No ESOPs create more capitalists. We actually get to put in and see the fruit of our labor. And there there is no replacement, there's no other that, that's the way capitalism should function. That's great. That's great. And just, just to, to add a point, so what I hear you saying is, is, you know, Your sense of security and that things are going to be okay and then you're going to have, you know, that retirement that might be far out for you earlier in your career, but it makes today different. It made yesterday different. It makes tomorrow different for Sarah coming to work, knowing the longer term view. The money comes later, but the experience is today, and I think I think of that well absolutely, because I don't have to put just my salary into savings constantly. I can use my salary to buy that house, to raise a family, to have my kids in the different activities they want, which I don't have children yet, but that's in the future. And I can use my salary to live on, which is what a salary is for, and I can live on that salary. Comfortably knowing that I will have something for my retirement, not just my four that I also have to pay into the fruits of my labor that I worked for for 40 years will have built up over time into something that I can rely on. That's great. That's great. Thank you Brent. Further insights too. Tyson it. I mean this always, when I've asked people, I've probably asked a couple thousand people. Over the years. So it is the big question. What does ownership mean to you? I can't just say what Sarah said. I mean Yeah, yeah. She covered, she, I think she covered it pretty well. Um, no, I, you know, when I think about it, especially being 11 years in. Especially when you have a little bit, some more years to really see it grow, you know, too. It's, it's everything. And I, I can't imagine, you know, Sarah had mentioned, you know, again, like even Pacific, for me, it wasn't necessarily what we did that, that attracted me to, to Pacific Steel and recycling. You grow to above that. Once you, once you get into the company and, and I'm. Proud of what we do both on the, on the steel and recycling side, but it was really the, the employee ownership part of it that, that drew me in. And, you know, I also come from a middle class family where, you know, I mean, my dad still is, he just turned 70 in February and he's still delivering pizza part-time. You know, now they're, they're getting very close to being able to, you know, I think the retirement looks okay, but they've really had to grind that out and, you know, again, That's with their hard earned money, you know? Right. That's, that wasn't necessarily. Given to them or you know, whatever else, but I wrote down on here it's, it's, and don't take this the wrong way, or I have to make sure it's not misinterpreted, but because I like, yeah, my family isn't, you know, again, middle class, 11 years in now when I look at like, what's on my esop, I almost feel like I came from a family, like I'm a trust fund baby, you know, because of like, because of the esop, you know, and it's, it's awesome and, and. Super appreciative of that. I don't, you know, again, I'm careful in comparing it to trust fund because everything that we do, like you have to earn it. You know, we're not looking for a handout. And, and technically yes, when you work for an ESOP company, it, it, it can feel free, you know, and it, and it is to a certain extent, right? But, You know, when we show up every single day, there does come, there's a lot of responsibility with that. And, you know, that's the beauty of an esop though. I mean, we, everything we do every single day, we're, we're earning that, you know, when we finally see that value kind of grow in our ESOP statement. So it's, to me, it's the ultimate gift that you can give, you know, give someone that, that has to, we all have to choose a career and do something right. And to me, there's, there's no. There's no better career to have than, than working for an employee-owned company. So I think the product service, all that stuff becomes secondary for me. It's, it's the culture and just being able to work for an ESOP company is super special. And I got 20 more years to go. So they're either gonna have to kick me out or, you know, I don't, I don't plan on leaving anywhere. That's great. Yeah. The ESOPs have remarkable tenure. If people feel their voice matters, they feel trusted and cared about, and they see a long term potential for financial differentiates, and it's a great recipe to, to have to attract and retain talent. It's the great, one of the great strengths of the ESOP and where there's more attention to ESOPs, um, for some of those retention capabilities. Cory. Most of our listeners probably know who you are, but if you, if we have some new listeners to the Owner to Owner podcast, could you introduce yourself a little bit about yourself, and then I'll bring us back to asking you the same question about what ownership means to you? Sure. I'm Corey Rosen. I'm the founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership, and I founded the Center in 1980. I'd been working on Capitol Hill for a few years, got involved in some of the ESOP legislation and decided this was really a fabulous idea that not many people knew about at the time. People didn't know if it worked and if it did work, what made it work? And so the N C E O, the National Center for Employee Ownership was created to have an organization that could provide that kind of information, do research on whether this was a good idea and what made it a good idea if it was, and make that information available. So that's what we do, and I was director of the NCO O for 30 years and decided that every organization needs. Change its leadership at, you know, 30 years is enough. And Lauren Rogers has been our director for the last 12 years, I guess now. And I'm sort of a close to full-time volunteer because I love it. So in terms of what ownership means to me, and ownership of course has been my passion to try to help this idea. Beyond where it it's been. And I think if we ha you know, if, if you think of an idea, so imagine there's an idea that helps companies perform better, that provides employees with two to three times. The retirement assets as other kinds of retirement plans, and 50% of the workforce is in no retirement plan at all. So it's infinitely better than all of that. That leads to much improved retention for employees. One third to one fifth, the layoffs. Of employees. It's good for the communities these companies are located in because people leave their jobs with enough money to buy a house or a car, send their kids to college or whatever. And this idea, aside from Millie working well, Was one of the very few things that Elizabeth Warren and Tommy Tuberville and James Rich and Kirsten Gillibrand agree on where Republicans and Democrats both love it. Without exception, you'd think we need an idea like that. We should be standing on hilltops and screaming about, Hey, here's an idea that actually works. Pay attention. And the the frustration that John and I felt in writing this, Was people aren't paying attention to it all the nostrums about how to fix the economy either. Yeah, they might work, but they're not politically feasible or they're politically feasible and they're so block as the, you know, the only thing people can agree on is pretty bland stuff. Then if we had an idea that actually meets those criteria, shouldn't we be talking about it? So that's what we're trying to accomplish with the. That's great. That's great. So to put you on the spot with the big question, with your 40 plus years, what does, what does ownership mean to Corey Rosen? When I started this organization, I thought of ownership in a couple of different ways, and I still do. One is ownership means. Wealth security means the opportunity to have a secure retirement, to have enough money to feel like I don't need to worry every day about am I gonna make it or not. You know, the kind, the, the Sarah was really eloquent, I think about why that matters so much and matters so much, not just financially, but the psychological impact of that wealth insecurity can. Pretty devastating, but it also meant dignity. It isn't simply people having a stake in the capitalist outcome of where they work, but being treated as if they really mattered in the company, treated as people, people who have ideas and can identify problems. And I thought at the outset, and the research has borne this out, that if companies will do that, if they will treat people like people and listen to their ideas with genuine humility and the assumption that anyone can have a good idea or identify an important problem. That the company's gonna perform a whole lot better. I mean, imagine if you have a company, remember Jesse, I saw something once that Hypertherm generated about two or three usable ideas per employee per year. Hmm. Imagine you have a company that does that. I say to people, wouldn't your company be a lot better company if you did that? And everybody says, well, of course it would. And that's ownership too. Yeah, continuous improvement is the ultimate ownership behavior. If you can have people feel safe to raise their voice and question things, tell them directly, you are the expert. I'm standing in your workspace wanting to learn those sorts of differences that most people, you know, hope for at an employer. And we see them come in here and we see it in other east house where it takes people a little. Getting used to that. It's remarkable. It's remarkable if you have the experts unleash their creative problem solving and move more dollars over to savings and profit sharing and, and share value. It's just, just a beautiful, absolutely beautiful thing. Well, thank you. Thank you very much Corey. So what I'd like to do here, so Sarah and Tyson, I talked to a lot of people about ownership. I see you both as very important voices and ownership. So I thought it'd be a lot of fun to be able to hear your perspective on the book, but then invite Corey to, to add common or color and then give a chance for, really for the three of you to make a connection that can be beneficial to the three of you after today. So, Sarah, if we can jump right in, what's something from the book that you wanna start with and we can look to the, to Corey to have comment and then Tyson will go to you and. Keep going like that the rest of our conversation. Sure. Yeah. One of the, like I said before, at the very beginning, I, being new in my career, I know very little about how ownership works in general outside of an ESOP company and E since being in an ESOP company, that's really all I've learned about is how employee ownership works. So one of the. First points in the book that caught my eye was when we talk about how capitalism operates outside of an ESOP or outside of employee ownership. And when I say that I, I, I mean in, you know, the, the people who own the company are the, they. All they really care about is profit. Especially when you talk publicly traded companies, private equity firms. It was really interesting to me. That you pointed out, like their focus is on the short term profits. How much can we jack up that share price right now in the next quarter or the next six months, or in the next year to make our shareholders happy? Because that's all they care about is profit. They don't care about how we're doing with, with our employees, how we treat our employees. They don't care how we're affecting the, the environment. I mean, that is coming more and more to be important, but it still takes a backseat, I mean, We see today a lot of these companies who say they're environmentally. Really aren't, they're just changing it. The wording to make it look like they're better because again, all they care about is profits. And I thought like the key way to get people to care about the long term profits of the company is to give that ownership to the people. Cuz exactly like you said, when it's a family owned company or, or when a founder starts a business. That's their baby, right? They, they don't care as much about profits as they care about the success of the company, about how their customers are treated, about how their employees are treated, about being a part of the community in which they're founded. But as soon as they sell to a bigger corporation, that corporation, those values tend to get lost in translation because that shift gets made into caring more about. So by selling to an employee-owned company, you keep those values because the people running the company are the people doing the day-to-day work. So obviously they're going to care first about how employees are treated because they are the owners and they're going to care about how their customers are treated because it's their company. They're going to care about the community in which they're rooted because all the employee. Most likely come from that community or live in that community. So they want that company to have a good rep to, to give back to the community in which they live in. And it's, it's kind of a no-brainer when you think about it that way. Well, why not? If it's gonna make companies more successful, it's gonna make them more loved in their communities. It's gonna make the employees happier and wealthier and more secure. It's kind of a no-brainer. And you actually did have a question on here too of like, does being an an owner impact the way you work? It absolutely does. I mean, I, I've actually run into a couple situations in which I see, I've seen co-owners struggling and other co-owners coming up with solutions on how to help them. When in other companies where I've worked, they would've been like, well, that's on them. There's successor failures on them, right? And it doesn't even come down. What the company's doing or how I can improve the company. It's if I see someone struggling or if I see somewhere that I can help, I'm gonna hop in and help find one's always on deck to help everyone else out. And you don't see that in these larger companies. I definitely didn't see it in Anheuser-Busch when we went through a, a contract change for the union and they gave all the grand. Employees a bonus if they voted in things that would take benefits away from future employees of the company. That was really disheartening when I was first coming into the job world, I'm like, okay, if I get a job here full-time, well, I already know my benefits are worse than everyone who works around me, but they all got bonuses to vote in something that's gonna help the shareholders of Anheuser-Busch, or that doesn't help the employees at all. And that was so disheartening to see. And then when I come to an ESOP and learn like, okay, that will never happen here. We own it, we get to make those calls. We're not going to encourage our co-owners to do something against their values because that would not be good for the company long term. So that was one of my biggest takeaways from the book. Thanks, Corey. Do you, do you have follow up or insights you wanna add to. Sarah's insight. Yeah. Sarah, that's really well put and thank you. Thanks for reading the book. The When, you know, when we say John and I say ownership is broken, that's part of it, that there's this short term focus on the the next quarter, the next year, if you're private equity flipping the company in three to five years. The other part where ownership is broken is that it's so concent. And so very, you know, 44 3 families own more wealth than 40 than 40% of the US population combined. Now, you could put a group of people in a large convention center lunch, and they would have more wealth than 99% of the rest of the people. This is crazy stuff and it's gotten more and more concentrated and what we've, we've done over the years is focus on income that, you know, we, we say, well, let's find a way for people's wages to be better. And that's really important to be sure. But wages have been stagnant for the last 40 years or so, since the late 1970s. But returns to equity have grown very quickly. So, The inventor of ESOPs Lewis Kelso was right. If we're going to have an economy that works for people in this economy, we need to think about ownership and not just about income. So ownership is broken in that way too, that they're simply too few owners. And finally it's broken in the sense that the people who do own stock and say a public company, that's a really a misnomer. You know, if you or I buy stock or even a pension fund, buy stock in a public company, it's more akin to. Placing a bet on a horse at the racetrack. We aren't really focusing on what can we do as investors to help provide this company with money to grow long term. Nobody thinks that when they buy stock, right? But that's what, that's what this sort of connotative sense of ownership is. I'm an owner, I'm investing in this company. No, you're not. You're an owner. You're just betting on what's gonna happen with this company if you're an employee. It's a whole other story. That's great. That's great. Thank you. Tyson, what's a key takeaway for, for you from the book? So a couple, there were a couple kind of words that, and just some quote that jumped out to me. I know one, and this was related to Kelso with the capitalist manifesto, and Corey kind of touched on this. You know, already, but just really the, the statement that he made, which I believe was in that book, was no one should have to live on labor income alone. And, you know, that's, that's for him to be saying that, I mean, one I'm just impressed for, I think it was that published in 1958. So the fact that there was this vision even then of really what a different version of capitalism can look like is, is impress. And, and that, you know, he had that, I guess, foresight to, to see that. And when you do really reflect on just any of us as workers though, especially lower to middle class and, and how the system is set up. It is hard. I mean, it makes it hard for people to succeed when we're expecting them. Hey, oh by the way, what are you doing for retirement? You have to use your wages to kind of set that aside. So the, the power of the ESOP is obviously, Yeah, it's, you can use your wages to, obviously we need to put food on the table today and take care of that. You know, but while at the same time we're, we're giving people, you know, we're giving them that avenue to where they don't necessarily, they don't have to worry about setting aside a bunch of of money for, you know, for that retirement cuz it's kind of taken care of as part of that, you know. Then there was also, there was kind of, this is the first time I've heard this, but we've all heard a lot of like, redistribution of wealth. You. Because that's, that's what's, that's what society needs. It's a redistribution of wealth because of the 1% and everything. And, and I don't necessarily disagree with that, I think, but how that's worded there was where there was redistribution versus pre distribution, you know, related to kind of the ESOP side. And I think when people hear redistribution, you think it's a, it's a win-lose situation. You know, well, if I gotta redistribute, then someone's, you know, there's less, less money's, you know, there's money coming outta my pocket, it's just gonna go to somebody else. Right. When I don't necessarily think of it that way within an esop, I think, you know, it's, it kind of pre distribution of, you know, the profits that we make as a company. But it's in my, just from my experience, I. It's, it's a win-win for everybody involved. Not only people at the top, but but everybody at the bottom and, and even more so when again, you give people that ownership stake. I, I think your profitability and and performance as a company would be even higher than, than what it potentially would be with. A handful of people, you know, controlling the wealth at the very top and trying to make all the decisions to do something. One other kind of, again, key takeaway for me, which I, I shared earlier, but as you read, which Cory spoke to, I mean, all the benefits that you can kind of link to, you know, ES being e and ESOP company and from job security, whatever else, one, it just made you, it made. Much more grateful and just a reminder of how, how lucky I am to, to be a part of, you know, of, of with Pacific Steel and recycling and how thankful I am for that. When you look at, I think it's said, there's what, 14 million people I think, you know, can say that they're employee owners, you know, kind of in the. In the private industry, and there's a hundred plus million workers that are out there that can't necessarily say that. And that, that one shows you how much more opportunity there is to, to obviously try to, to, to really spread this model into, into different places. And it's, I'm there's a lot of names thrown out in the book that you can consider kind of being, oh, whether it's the, the founding fathers or, you know, I mean really who's, who do we have to thank for. Kind of beating this drum, and I mean, obviously it starts with Louis Kelso and. Very early on, but just so you know, I have Corey Rosen written down on my notes as one of the guys, whether, whether he was on this call or not, I was gonna make sure I contribute to the great Corey Rosen. So that is, I mean, 40 years of, you know, I mean of, again, him, him fighting for, you know, for, for this visionary kind of business model that can really redefine what capitalism can look like in the. And I, and I share, I didn't even, I'm not even the founder of the M C E O and I'm frustrated for, you know, for not seeing as much growth within the ESOP community, you know, as I feel like there should be, cuz. When you really talk about it and look at the benefits, it's, it is a no-brainer. And, and I feel like, I think as Sarah alluded to as well, I think so many people are frustrated and, and they're not fulfilled with work and they want more out of work and, and. Corporate, you know, wall Street to corporate America as a black eye. And, and I, I remember my sister, she probably, a conversation happened with her a couple months ago. She was like, I'll never work for, for a corporation, you know, and that, that says something, you know, and you just wish you could give her those avenues of, Hey, I hear. Here's an employee-owned company to work for. You know, give that a shot and, and it'll change your life. So that's great. Those are, those are a few takeaways. That's great. Well, I appreciate it cuz I wanna amplify the book as well because I think it's important. I actually resource Go ahead Sarah. I was just gonna say, I, I, I, while you were talking, Tyson, uh, a couple of your points. Brought up more thoughts for me. I mean, the book also talks about the complete disparate pay that, you know, CEOs and Toppi executives receive compared to the people who are actually on the, have boots on the ground doing the work that you couldn't have the company without. And that's bringing an eye to that and all the tax code that's been written and changed to support capitalism as it exists right now in the US and all the ideas, Corey, that you guys, you and John mentioned in the book. Just tweaks to tax code that would make ESOPs so much more appealing for companies to sell to. If we can do it for all these, the 1% and this and the capitalism as it exists right now, it, it's a, again, as I said, no brainer. Why wouldn't we just. Make these small tweaks to tax code and it, I can understand your frustration because when we talk about the economy now, and it's one of the biggest, biggest things that candidates are always campaigning on, presidents are always talking about the economy and what they would do to increase taxes or decrease taxes. It's always, always a fight. But like you said, employee ownership's not a fight. It's a bipartisan idea. Honestly, there's a lot of the answers. It's not the only answer, but it's a, it's a great avenue that should be explored more, that people should know more about. So it's frustrating that we don't have candidates talking more about employee ownership. We don't have it more in the limelight when the economy is such a big ticket item every single year when there's an answer that's been. And it has proof that it works and we have more ideas on how to make it better, but no one wants to listen. I can imagine how frustrating it is, especially when everyone seems to agree on all the issues that capitalism presents as it exists in the US right now. Well, I can't, we talk about how to fix it. Yeah. Corey, you wanna add thoughts and then note I'd like to do is bring in the, the statement from Don Case after that. What are your thoughts, Corey, on what Sarah and Tyson have been sharing with. It's really well stated. And you know, I, I think there's one other side of this that's important to recognize as well, that the people who are the executives in these companies like being executives a lot better. My sense is than. People and o other companies because it's really cool as a leader to walk around the company and seeing people being engaged in helping improve the company. You have just this sense of community and doing the right thing, and to be even a little more grandiose. I think it's not just ownership that's broken in this country. I think the country's broken, and people just don't have much social trust anymore. People think the system is unfair to them for whatever reason, whether you're on the left or the right, your reasons may be different, but people increasingly feel, oh, you know, we're being left out. Other people are getting a better deal. What ownership does is help address that problem by creating. Sense of common purpose and community where people who in a workplace or in the polity couldn't agree on a lot of things, can agree about this and come together with other people as people in solving problems. And from that, I think you could really build outward, well, if we could work together on this, maybe there's other things we could work on. But I think we're desperately in need of solutions like this. That's. That's great. All right. Well, I wanna do, it's getting close to time. I wanna do is have you thinking a little bit on what are the three words today in this conversation with the four of us. What three words would you use to describe ownership? We're gonna finish by letting you really boil it down. And then we'll then we'll probably close from there. So while you're pondering that, I want to bring John Case's voice into our conversation cause they couldn't join us today. Corey and I wrote this book for two reasons. One was simply to share the news about employee-owned companies. They perform better than their peers. They're much more likely to involve employees and workplace decisions. And when you come right down to it, they're more fun to work at. And I think the three of us. Support of John's statement, who wouldn't rather be working for themselves rather than for some absentee owners. Then there's the bigger picture, which is the other reason. People who work for a wage or salary in our country often get a raw deal. Many have to live paycheck to paycheck. Many have lousy jobs or they, they're treated just like any other hired hand and many worry about being laid off. Meanwhile, the Wall Street stockholders, private equity firms and other owners do very well. Employee ownership changes the terms of the equation. It enables everyday people to build up a nest egg and to enjoy some measure of financial security. It keeps the profits of the business inside the community where they help to build the community's prosperity. That's the argument we thought was worth making. Sure we live in a divided country. Politically speaking, nearly everyone on both sides of the aisle supports more employee ownership in principle. Just have to help them make it a priority so the more and more people can become employee owners. Statement from John Case, co-author with Corey Rosen on the book. That was great to, great to hear that from John and, and his passion shared with Corey for ownership and equity. And, and changing the game. So I wanna bring us around to what is proven over the years to Yes. Be The other hard question. The first one is, you did very well with what does ownership mean to you? But can you take something that becomes a way of working? For a lot of us, almost a little bit of an identity. Can you reduce it down to three words? So Sarah, if you wanna go first, what three words today would you use to describe employee ownership? Yeah, this, this is one I always give a lot of thought. The first word that comes to mind is empowering. E. Exactly. Because of what you said. Employee owners have more of a say in the day-to. Interactions in the workplace. We actually have a suggestion box of Admix that employee owners use on a pretty regular basis where they submit ideas that they might have for bettering the company or concerns they might have, or questions they don't understand that gets submitted and reviewed. And we often talk about those. During our monthly rally, which we have on a monthly basis, a meeting in which we go over all the financials, we go over our long-term goals, our short-term goals, what's going on in the next few weeks, so everyone's on the same page. It's so empowering to co-owners to know like I'm not just an owner in name. I'm an owner in practice as well, secure. Is the next word that comes to mind. Again, for all the reasons we've discussed it, it gives security in my day-to-day life while I'm working for the company, and it gives security to me when I retire from the company or leave the company later on because as we've said over and over again because of the esop, I can focus on using my salary for my day-to-day life, for my short-term goals, and I can use the ESOP for my long-term. And then the, my, the third word that I'd use to describe ownership is reassuring. And it, it goes right in hand, in hand with, you know, empowering and security. But, or, or actually the third word that I originally was gonna go with was fun. And it seems simple and it seems easy, but it is fun because everyone, when you're, when you work for an employee owned business, like I never woke up when I was five years old and says, I'm gonna sell mixers someday, but here I am, two years in. So enthusiastic about it. I can tell you, talk to you all day about your mixing application. So you wanna just disperse gums and water. I know exactly how to do that. Talk all day long. And most people, when they work for something like that, they don't care because they answer to the man. Right. But when you're an employee-owned company, You are the man you get to, to have fun with it and get excited about it because everyone cares about it and everyone takes ownership of that. Like, this is my company, we manufacture this here in London, area New Hampshire. Like 98% of our products come from right here in New Hampshire. So I mean that's, that's something to be really proud of. And just the culture around ESOPs in general are so much more fun with the different team building activities we do and the fun events we get to take a part of. It's unlike anywhere I've worked before. Empowering, security and fun. Awesome. Thank you very much. I, in three words today to describe ownership, I have 10 words written down, but I'm not going to use 10, but it's so hard you can't, that's such an unfair question, but that's what makes it fun. So I, I, I get the exercise, so the only way I can try to answer your question within the guidelines is I'm gonna say everything that Sarah said. So then that gives me, that gives me a few extra descriptions. I would say purpose is, is definitely a big one for, for us. I, I think it, it completely again, gives you a different sense of, of why you're, you're coming to work every single day, which is, which is special, and again, you're just not clocking in and clocking out. You're, you're a part of something much bigger. Blessed, for me personally, it's the, the longer you're, you're with an ESOP company again. You continue to be even more appreciative of, of stumbling into that, you know, for a lot of us, so I'm, I'm extremely blessed to, to be a part of, to work for an ESOP company. Third, I'd say, I'm gonna just use one. Okay. I'll say family, you know, for a lot of us here, and even the people in my department now, I, so I've been with again, Pacific for 11. It's very special to feel like you're gonna be able to, to, to finish your career with some of the same people that you started with. And, and I don't think you see that. I think this day and age there's a lot of job hopping and, and, you know, finding kind of that next big thing, you know, the next best thing or, hey, I can make an extra, you know, x amount an hour by going over to, to the, you know, the competition or something like that. Right. The, the next best thing is, I mean, Yeah, I mean, when you're working for an ESOP company, I, I just don't think you're not, you're not hopping around. It's, uh, you, you do have the privilege of, I just, I've worked with people for 11 years up to this point, and I know I'm gonna be able to work with some of those same people for the next 15 to 20 years. And, and that's when you get to work with, Especially the right people. You know, when you can work with people in your career for 20 plus years, there is a strong family that you, you kind of do develop that greater sense of family and community. That's, that's super special that a lot of people, I don't think. Get to experience in their, in their career. So that's, those are my three words. Jess, you, you, you navigated the intentional constraints very gracefully. Both of you. You did. That's hard. It's hard. Well, I appreciate, I appreciate the mention of, you know, you say here, you know, at Hypotherm, a lot of us say that. You know, been here for a while as we're, we're kind of growing, growing up together. You know, you see, you know, families start and kids going to college and you have a, a long time in between to put your head heads down and work. And so I think it's great to talk about the, um, welcome the new voices, but also acknowledge that opportunity, which is. Increasingly rare and, and less secure in our country. And, and ownership does bring that around, so I appreciate you bringing that in, Corey, to, to round us out, what three words would you use today to describe employee ownership? So the ones I would choose are dignity, security, and fairness. Those are things that a lot of jobs don't have. Maybe they got one, maybe they got two. Probably don't have all three. Yeah. And that's something that employee ownership companies really strive for. That's great. Appreciate it. Well, I want to thank our guests today, Sarah Lamo from Mad Mix. I need company to watch. You'd be amazed at the reach of this, this ESOP in London area, New Hampshire for national brands at their reach into the economy. Tyson Hendrickson from Pacific Steel, multi-location, seasoned, mature. Very successful esop and Corey Rosen, founder of the N C o and author of the book, ownership, reinventing Companies, capitalism, and Who Owns What Written In Partnership with John Case. I'm Jesse Tyler, host of the Owner to Owner Podcast, doing this to amplify ownership here voices and have conversations like this that I think we could use more to to move the movement forward. This podcast grew out of a friendship with Brett Ke. And really enjoy doing this work for the EO Podcast Network and supporting the N C E O and other voices like Tysons and Sarahs. So thank you very much. To our listeners, I hope you got some great insights and that you go and buy Corey and John's book and learn more, which you can buy. You're gonna buy it. It's cheaper on our website. Yeah. On, yes, on on the NCO website and, uh, but you can buy it Amazon or other places too. Yeah, so we're gonna directly plug the NCO option because it's more affordable and it goes to the, one of the great causes, founding causes of, of ownership. So again, from the Owner, owner podcast and the O Podcast Network. Thank you very much and we'll look forward to further conversations about. Thanks for all of you. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Thanks, Jesse. We'd love to hear from you. You can find us on Facebook at EO Podcast Network and on Twitter at ESOP podcast. This podcast has been produced by Brett Keasling for the EO Podcast Network. Original music composed by Max Keesling, branding and Marketing by Bitsy Plus Design. And I'm Bitsy mcc.
