Spring Break Double Edition
EO+WD Weekend Newsletter Vol. 91
🤗 Welcome Back!
We’ve got big one for y’all this week, after taking a week off for spring break.
Dr. Hand’s students in his democracy class published a new round of key democratic thinkers over on Di5W
Dr. Hand will be at ESOPs as an Exit Planning Strategy in Dallas this upcoming Thursday (3/27). Stop by and say hi!
Evan writes about integrating artificial intelligence into the workplace, reflecting on Mary Gray’s argument for workers having a say
📢 News to Know
Jim’s Formal Wear of Illinois, LMC Construction from Portland, Denver based construction company Fiore & Sons, and San Francisco restaurant Reem’s California are now employee owned
The Trump Administration reinstated the chief of the Department of Labor’s Division of Employee Ownership, Hilary Abell, previously caught up in mass government layoffs
Meanwhile, former Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer was confirmed as President Trump’s Labor secretary in a 67-32 vote
The Industrial and Labor Relations Review released an interdisciplinary call for academic papers on the impacts of employee ownership from all disciplines
Elle Griffin has almost hit her investment goal for her new book, We Should Own The Economy. Learn more about it and help her reach it here!
Unionized employees at REI are pushing for members to vote “withhold” after excluding two union-backed candidates and handpicking nominees in their 2025 Board of Directors election
Illa Burbank is the new Executive Director of the North Carolina Center for Employee Ownership
🎙️ New Podcasts
New Private Markets Podcast share how employee ownership “boosts both positive impact and business value”
Marie Davis, Executive Director of Georgia’s Center for Employee Ownership, discusses different forms of employee ownership on The Change Georgia Podcast
The Leader of Leaders podcast explores what real ownership in companies look like with Kerry Siggins, CEO of StoneAge Waterblast Tools
In January, the Opportunity Zones Podcast featured Noelle St. Clair Lentz on impact investing, employee ownership, and ESOPs
SXSW just finished! Listen to “This is Not Woke Capitalism- This Is the Future of Business” and “The Only Constant is Change': Rethinking Corporate Ownership
💼 Job Opportunities
Cooperative Home Care Associates is hiring an Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Ownership Capital Lab has two MBA Summer Associates positions available
The Alabama Center for Employee Ownership is hiring an Executive Director
🔍 White Papers, Op-Eds, and Other Analysis
👉 On Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)
Luke Messer, an estimator at employee-owned Garney Construction, highlights the benefits of working for an ESOP. “Everyone should be able to hang up their boots, when the time comes, without worry”
Jules Pequignot highlights how being acquired by an ESOP changed his perspective on working and increased his retirement fund
Expanding ESOPs puts seven questions Kim Blaugher from Rady School of Management’s Beyster Institute and David Solomon, founder of Levenfeld Pearlstein’s ESOP
Mike Burns explores the individual, business, and economic benefits of ESOP ownership
👉 On Purpose Trusts
Rick Plympton, CEO of Optimax, shares his journey of transitioning to an employee ownership trust
Brad Herrmann, founder of employee-owned company Text-Em-All, shares his “best advice” about leadership
👉 On Worker Cooperatives
Haytham Nawaz offers worker cooperatives as an alternative to state-driven economic planning
Main Street Journal reframes the history of cooperative conglomerate Mondragon as an act of resistance
👉 On Everything Else
Project Equity shares how three business owners are “winning” after transitioning to employee-ownership
Katherine Katcher and Alison Lingane released their white paper “The Silver Tsunami, the Great Wealth Transfer and the future of employee ownership in the United States”
Regina Carls, Evan Edwards, Allegra Stennett, and Darrin M Redus, Sr. discuss the importance of succession planning with the influx of business owners nearing retirement age
John Abrams announces his new book From Founder to Future, on purpose-driven succession paths
Thomas Dudley’s first Substack newsletter analyzes the progress and the trajectory of employee ownership
Errol Schweizer explores how The Purpose Pledge addresses structural economic issues within the new administration
Predistribution Initiative releases their Investor Playbook on Employee Ownership in Sub-Saharan Africa
Open Privilege highlights the benefits that employee ownership provides to the workforce
Project Equity CEO Evan Edwards analyzes how Americans’ concerns with the economy can be addressed through employee ownership
Michael Ras and Jon Shell discuss how implementing employee ownership models in Canada can address concerns about sovereignty
🤓 New Academic Papers
Don’t miss this, fellow nerds! The Industrial and Labor Relations Review released an interdisciplinary call for academic papers on the impacts of employee ownership from all disciplines
Julie Battilana, Christine M. Beckman, and Julie Yen published an article on the outcomes of organizational democracy and how these outcomes contribute to society
Andrew Pendleton and Andrew Robinson’s new paper in the International Review of Applied Economics covers employee ownership trusts (EOTs) in the UK and why they have been so successful
The University of North Carolina’s business school published a white paper on 5 Steps for Effective Succession Planning You Can Do Today
🌇 What’s Coming Up
🆕 | March 25: ideas42’s webinar on Small Business Owner Perspectives on Succession Planning
March 26: Ownership Capital Lab’s webinar EO fund spotlight: 2025 investment opportunities
🆕 | March 27: U.S. Small Business Administration and Georgia Center for Employee Ownership host Is Employee Stock Ownership Plan an Option for Your Business? in Atlanta
🆕 | March 27: Exit Planning Institute’s ESOPs as an Exit Planning Strategy Dallas, with Mark Russell
March 27-28: The Rocky Mountain and Texas/Oklahoma chapters of the ESOP Association’s Regional Conference in Phoenix
April 9-10: The Aspen+Rutgers Employee Ownership Ideas Forum in Washington, DC. Tickets will be released via the Aspen EOP mailing list
April 10: The 39th Annual Ohio Employee Ownership Conference in Akron
April 14-17: NCEO’s 2025 Annual Employee Ownership Conference in Salt Lake City
🆕 | April 17: Common Trust’s webinar, Owners Session: The First Year of Employee Ownership with Brad Herrmann
April 22: Project Equity’s webinar Attract & Keep Top Talent-Why Employee Ownership is the Key
🆕 | April 24: Ownership Capital Lab’s webinar NextGen investors for social impact: The power to scale EO
🆕 | April 30: The Iowa Center for Employee Ownership’s webinar, Advisors’ Edge: Unlocking Employee Ownership for Your Clients
May 6-8: Community Spaces Network and Community Vision’s Social Purpose Real Estate Summit
May 8-June 19: Ownership Capital Lab’s four-part educational course for foundations and philanthropic institutions on addressing the racial and gender wealth gap through investments in the Ownership Economy
🆕 | May 12-13: The Ownership Project at the Harvard Business School’s conference, Worker Ownership: Expanding Typology and Exploring Dimensions
May 13-16: The TEA National Conference on ESOP advocacy and education, in Washington, D.C.
🆕 | May 14-15: ImpactPHL and SOCAP’s Total Impact Summit in Philadelphia
June 22-24: The Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing hosts its second 2025 Future of Equity Symposium in Palo Alto
July 8-11: The 5th Global Research Conference of the International Cooperative Alliance in Montreal
July 14: The National Center for Employee Ownership’s Ownership in Action Series in San Diego (Sign up before April 30th before price increases!)
🆕 | July 14-15: The National Center for Employee Ownership’s Is an ESOP Right for You? event in San Diego (Sign up before April 30th before price increases!)
July 24-25: Employee-Owned S Corporations of America’s 2025 Midwestern Regional Policy Seminar in Chicago
🆕 | August 5-8: The Oxford Symposium on Employee Ownership in the UK
August 30: The 3rd annual Rutgers-Oxford Employee Ownership Research Symposium, also in the UK
September 10-12: Employee-Owned S Corporations of America’s 2025 Federal Policy Conference & Lobby Day in Washington, D.C.
October 6-7: Employee-Owned S Corporations of America’s 2025 Pacific Regional Policy Seminar in Marina del Rey
October 23: The 3rd Annual Employee Ownership Conference in Ankeny
🆕 | October 27-29: Social Capital Markets’s SOCAP25 in San Francisco