Employee Ownership Blog

Loren Rodgers

March 31, 2022

The New Chair of the NCEO's Board of Directors

Victor Aspengren has succeeded Mary Boettcher as the chair of the NCEO's board of directors as of today. Mary had been the chair of the NCEO's board of directors since 2019; as the chief steward of the organization's mission to help employee ownership thrive, Mary says, " I am grateful for the opportunity to have served as chair of this extraordinary organization for the past three years. What a tumultuous time period for any organization, and none displayed more strength, determination, and agility than the NCEO. NCEO staff continues to deliver outstanding critical educational resources and research to support our employee ownership community and their passion to serve and grow employee ownership is ever-present. I look forward to continuing to serve as immediate past chair on the board of directors for the next two years!"

Corey Rosen

March 29, 2022

Proposed DOL Regulations on Exempt Transactions Raise ESOP Community Concerns

On March 8, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) proposed new rules for prohibited transaction exemption (PTE) filings, rules that have raised concerns in the ESOP community. These filings are relatively rare, with about 20 per year. While ESOPs are statutorily exempt from having to make these filings, some ESOP professionals are concerned the DOL might subsequently extend the concepts in the proposal to ESOPs.

Corey Rosen

March 24, 2022

California Bill Would Provide Major Impetus for Employee Ownership

In what would be the most significant step forward by a state yet, Senator Josh Becker has introduced Senate Bill 1407, the Expanding Employee Ownership Act. The bill would provide outreach, financing, and technical assistance for conversions to employee ownership.

Corey Rosen

March 23, 2022

Minnesota Bill Would Provide Low-Interest Loans for Employee Ownership

HF 3733, a bill to help build community wealth in Minnesota, would create a low-interest loan program to support employee ownership, community land trusts, or cooperatives focused on providing wealth-building opportunities for historically disadvantaged groups, including people of color, women, disabled veterans, and low-income workers. The state would appropriate $15 million in 2023 to provide grants to partner organizations to make the loans, which would be priced at not more than the prime rate. State support for the loan could be for up to $2.5 million. Eligible borrowers must be able to show the project could not be financed without this support. Up to 10% of the funds could be used for technical assistance. Half the principal payments would go to a community wealth-building account the state would create to provide ongoing funding.

Corey Rosen

March 23, 2022

Why Strong Leaders Can Make Very Bad—and Even Deadly—Decisions

One of the great paradoxes of leadership is that the very qualities that might make someone likely to become a leader of a company—or a nation—can be the very same qualities that can lead to some very bad decisions. Rising to the top usually takes a lot of self-confidence and the ability to make good decisions about a lot of things quickly. But that same self-confidence can turn to arrogance, an arrogance that may discourage those working with you to challenge your assumptions, ideas, and even what you perceive as facts.

Loren Rodgers

March 17, 2022

COVID Safety at the 2022 Annual Conference

When we started planning this year's conference, we knew we needed a health protocol system that would give people enough foresight to plan a trip many months in advance. Since people have widely different views on COVID safety, we decided that the best approach is to serve people who are more cautious, recognizing that we’d be asking some people to be more cautious than they felt necessary. We have many attendees in high-risk groups, and we also didn’t know what the COVID situation would be by the time April arrived. All of that seemed to argue for a conservative approach.

Chris Cooper

March 15, 2022

The Employee Ownership Future

The last two years have been a challenge for all of us, and many challenges still remain. For those of us in the employee ownership community, there are numerous bright spots lighting our way to the employee ownership future, some of which include:

Timothy Garbinsky

March 10, 2022

New Rutgers Program Focuses on Retiring Business Owners of Color

The Rutgers School of Labor and Management has just introduced a free online program that guides business owners through the process of selling their businesses to their employees through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) or worker cooperative. The program, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, is run through the New Jersey/New York Center for Employee Ownership, which created the program in conjunction with our friends at the Democracy At Work Institute, itself one of the foremost authorities on worker cooperatives.

Timothy Garbinsky

March 10, 2022

New Beyster Course for ESOP Professionals

Our friends at the Beyster Institute in the Rady School of Management at the University of California at San Diego have just opened registration for their new training program for ESOP service providers. The course, titled Understanding ESOPs: Training to be an ESOP Professional, is offered in partnership with the UC San Diego Extension program and will cover all the basics for service providers who seek to gain more expertise in the field.

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