Drew Mousetis is the executive director of the Tandem Center for Shared Business Success, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping businesses transition to direct employee ownership. In this conversation with Madelyn Hammack, marketing manager at the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO), Drew shares his journey from employee-owner to advocate, explains the unique benefits of direct employee ownership, and discusses Tandem's mission to expand this model across the United States.
Madelyn Hammack: What initially drew you to the world of employee ownership? I know you mentioned you were an employee-owner at Cargas Systems. Could you tell us about that experience and whether you encountered misconceptions about employee ownership when you were getting started?
Drew Mousetis: I'd love to share that story. I was working as a finance and development director at a nonprofit drug and alcohol treatment center, with a background in accounting from Penn State. I've always been mission-driven—I think you find that with millennials and younger generations. They want to work for more than just a paycheck; they want some sense of purpose tied to why they show up every day.
I was married with our second child on the way, working at the nonprofit and studying for an MBA at Elizabethtown College. Cargas Systems kept catching my attention—they're a local direct employee-owned software and consulting firm that regularly makes the "best places to work" lists in our area.
I went to their website and explored their careers page and teamwork materials. While getting my MBA, I actually wrote papers and did projects about employee ownership. The culture at Cargas really stood out—the idea that I could work for a company where I could buy shares, have voting rights, and have a say in the strategy and direction from day one as a direct employee-owner. That really drew me in.
I studied it, wrote papers about it, then applied to work there as a lead consultant and bought in right away.
MH: For someone who's never heard of direct employee ownership, how would you explain why it matters?
DM: When business owners look at exiting or succession planning, they have several options: family succession, management buyout, selling to a strategic buyer or private equity, going public, or employee ownership. Employee ownership is a way to exit to your employees while leaving a lasting legacy—the company remains rooted in the communities where people live and work, maintains its culture, and still brings a fair price to the owner.
Getting more specific about direct employee ownership versus ESOPs: Direct EO is designed for businesses of various sizes that are philosophically aligned with employee ownership, including those that aren't quite large enough for an ESOP. It's lower cost to set up and administer than an ESOP.
The key difference is in the transition process. Though they can be flexible, ESOPs are often big transactions with banks, lawyers, and accountants all coming together for a large exit event. Direct employee ownership is an incremental, managed transition where the owner can sell shares back to the company over time at a pace they're comfortable with. Even younger business owners can start this process—it doesn't need to be a big life event.
Direct EO is also more flexible since it's not governed by ERISA. There are design choices in structuring shareholder agreements and different programs you can include like stock bonus, grant, or donation programs.
For employees, the experience is different too. In an ESOP, it's a retirement plan—the company makes the decision for them. With direct EO, employees choose whether to use their profit sharing or bonus to buy stock, usually twice a year. We believe that making this purchase decision engages employees more in the overall growth and success of the business.
Personally, it felt more empowering. These were voting shares—I attended shareholder meetings, voted to elect the board of directors. It was one share, one vote. And there was potential for liquidity if needed. If I needed to sell stock to buy a home, the company had a 100% track record of buying back shares for major life events.
MH: Are there specific qualities or industries where businesses are best suited to direct employee ownership?
DM: First and foremost, you need an owner who's aligned with transitioning to employee ownership. Next is organizational culture—is it open, collaborative, transparent? Does everyone get involved in driving success at their level? Culture is really important.
The business should be profitable or on the path to profitability. There's really no minimum number of employees, but I'd say 10 and up works well.
We've connected with businesses across various industries that have some flavor of direct EO. There's construction, manufacturing, software, professional service firms, engineering companies, and others. In addition, we’ve worked with warehousing and shipping, code inspection, HVAC companies, counseling centers, and others. The beauty of direct EO is that businesses have been doing versions of this for generations—Tandem's pathway just makes it broad-based and inclusive so every employee has the opportunity.
MH: What workplace culture and decision-making effects do you see after direct EO is implemented?
DM: One of the most untapped resources in organizations is the drive, motivation, ideas, and creativity from people throughout the organization. Direct employee ownership—and Tandem's approach to it—is like a whole system of programs and practices to foster a culture that unleashes that untapped potential.
Key practices include being open and transparent with financials, strategy, and direction of both the overall organization and individual business units. For some owners, this feels risky, so Tandem rolls it out incrementally at a pace where you're educating as you go.
This gives people awareness of how they can contribute to overall success. Combined with profit sharing and direct ownership where they're voting shareholders, you've connected people to something greater than just a job and paycheck. You've made them part of something bigger where they want to rally around a common purpose.
When you're open, honest, transparent, and collaborative—gathering feedback and including people in decision-making—implementation becomes smoother because people are bought in. There's still hierarchy, but if you include people upfront, you spend more time at the beginning but much less cleaning up later.
From my personal experience, there were times when teammates needed help but I was on a billable client engagement. If I were purely individually motivated, I'd say I couldn't help. But through direct employee ownership, where everybody's part of the whole, I was willing to let go of individual goals to help a teammate because we're all working for the collective good of the business.
MH: Could you share Tandem's origin story?
DM: The Tandem origin story started in 1988 when Chip Cargas founded Cargas Systems on the principle of shared success—the idea that people could come together, share information openly, collaborate, and share success generously with one another.
In 1996, with 10 employees, he implemented a profit-sharing plan where he accrued 20% of pre-tax profits, shared that monthly as part of open-book management reporting, and distributed half equally across all employees who had been there the entire six-month period. The other half was distributed based on years of service. Very egalitarian—all math, no management discretion.
In 1998, at 15 employees, he implemented the direct employee ownership model. Today, there's about 92% participation in becoming employee-owners there.
Chip retired as CEO in 2017, then served as board chair, then board member, and as of this year, he's sold all his shares back to the business and is fully out.
In early January 2023, Chip was sitting in his condo in Hafnarfjörður, Iceland—he lives there six months a year—overlooking the harbor, and thought, "I still have some brainpower left. I wonder what I can do with it."
He met with about 50 leaders and business owners and started conceptualizing Tandem. We formally formed the organization in November 2023. I was on the board as a third-generation employee-owner at Cargas.
When we were hiring our executive director, I realized that the home I live in with my family is a direct result of being a direct employee-owner at Cargas. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead an organization and offer that to others. So I applied and was hired as executive director.
MH: What does a typical engagement look like at Tandem when a company approaches you?
DM: First, I should mention that the Chip and Rebecca Cargas Fund provided generous seed funding for Tandem to get started, and Chip serves as our board chair and mentor.
Our mission is to offer pathways for business success through profit sharing and direct employee ownership that lead to shared prosperity and stronger communities. We do this through awareness, education, and support services.
For 20 years, Chip had been talking about direct employee ownership. Business owners would say it sounded interesting, but it never went anywhere because they were busy running their businesses and all the professional advisors focused on selling, M&A, or ESOPs. Nobody existed to help business owners consider direct employee ownership.
Tandem fills that gap. We have 40 years of combined experience from a direct employee-owned company that we've distilled into one-pagers, templates, sample documents, and a five-phase support process: Explore, Evaluate, Design, Implement, and Enhance.
We currently have seven clients actively engaged in transition. We're a couple months out from having a business roll our direct employee ownership to their employees, which will be a major milestone. We just hired a Director of Client Services to help build out the practice as we scale.
MH: Looking five years or more down the line, what are your big dreams for Tandem?
DM: Our early indications tell us we have an idea whose time has come and the resources to bring it to fruition. The Tandem pathway fits an entire segment of the market—business owners looking at transitions who aren't a good fit for other employee ownership models.
We see tremendous potential to vastly expand the employee ownership ecosystem through direct EO. In 10 years, I envision hundreds of new employee-owned businesses through direct employee ownership. The Tandem team would grow to maybe 20 employees, and we'd look at offering these tools to others across the country who want to do this in their regions.
I believe that in 10 years, employee ownership will be commonplace language. People graduating from college will gravitate toward employee-owned companies versus non-employee-owned companies. We'll have helped create that groundswell, and Tandem will be a key piece in making that happen.
MH: That sentiment really resonates with me. Employee ownership has become so commonplace in my language that if I were ever on the job market, I would look at employee-owned businesses first. Not many people even really know about this option yet, so I totally agree with your vision of making it commonplace. Thank you so much for your time today, Drew!
Drew: Thank you, Maddy! It's been great talking with you. I'm confident that direct employee ownership will greatly increase the number of employee-owned companies.
To learn more about the Tandem Center for Shared Business Success and direct employee ownership, visit their website or connect with them directly via the interest form.