The Conference organized around the theme "Building on a Quarter Century of Employee Ownership" drew a record crowd of 350 people, who came together to celebrate 25 years of growth for employee ownership and to look toward employee ownership in the new century.

The morning plenary session featured three guest speakers. Corey Rosen, the Executive Director and co-founder of the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO), a private non-profit organization that serves as a leading source of information on employee ownership, spoke on broadening capital ownership nationally and his vision of what the future holds. Kenny Sutton, Manager, Employee & Labor Relations at Blue Ridge Paper Products, the largest employee-initiated buyout since United Airlines, spoke about efforts to develop a state of the art employee participation program. Kenny brought a unique perspective to the subject since, up until last summer, he had spent his entire career as an hourly employee and union member. The third speaker, U.S. Congressman Tom Sawyer from Ohio's 14th District, a long-time and valued friend of employee ownership was instrumental in getting a line added to this year's appropriations bill to fund feasibility work on employee ownership in the steel and aluminum industries.

The luncheon speaker, Lynn Williams, former president of the United Steelworkers, discussed Labor and Employee Ownership (see pp. 15-18). Under his leadership, the Steelworkers moved to the forefront among American unions in using employee ownership to retain jobs and in negotiating innovative participatory bargaining agreements. In addition to being the luncheon speaker, Williams received the 2000 Ohio Employee Ownership Award For Long-term Commitment to Broadening Ownership. Each year, the Conference honors companies and individuals that have made outstanding contributions to employee ownership. Other awards went to:

Blue Ridge Paper Products, PACE and UAW Locals For Getting Your ESOP Off to a Good Start. Blue Ridge has been an ESOP for just over a year. It was designed to provide employee participation from the shop floor to the corporate boardroom and to offer training, open communications and financial incentives. It has 2200 employees in seven plants in six states.

An award For 20 Years of Leadership in Building ESOPs went to Fastener Industries. In 1980, employees bought Fastener Industries. Twenty years later, 100% employee-owned Fastener is a model for what employee ownership can achieve and has acquired two additional companies, Joseph Industries and Brainard Rivet, and brought them into its ESOP. This 210-employee company combines the best of corporate and employee ownership practices.

For his service to employee ownership and his efforts on behalf of employees and communities adversely affected by the recent steel crisis, Congressman Tom Sawyer was presented the award For Legislative Leadership for Employee Ownership.

How and why do you get an ESOP started?
The Conference runs concurrent sessions on various topics relating to employee ownership in three different time slots throughout the day. Traditionally, and this year was no exception, there was a panel on the ABCs of ESOPs which provided the basics of how ESOPs work. The panel on Selling to Your Employees looked at how to use an ESOP as a business succession strategy and featured the experiences of Richard Abbott of ACRT and Robert J. Schneider of Patio Enclosures. ESOPs are also used to stave off plant closures. The panel on Using Employee Ownership to Avert Shutdown told two exciting stories about how the employees bought their plants and kept their jobs. Participants at this session heard from Bruce McLeod and Arnie Moore of Lake Shore Frozen Foods as well as Kenny Sutton and Pete Dagostino from Blue Ridge Paper Products.

ESOP companies face many challenges. Where there is a union, there are always concerns about the role of the union. On the panel Labor-Management Relations in Employee-Owned Companies, Kenny Sutton and Mike Watson of Blue Ridge Paper took a look at how things are working in a new unionized employee-owned company while Jim Anderson and Pat Bentley of Republic Storage Systems talked about their growing pains over the 14 years since that company became employee-owned.

The Technical Side of ESOPS
ESOPs have a very technical side. After all, they are essentially pension plans and everyone knows how complicated they can be. Consequently, the Conference offered sessions for those who have responsibilities in that area. In the morning, there was a panel on Repurchase Obligation and Valuation which discussed what companies need to know about valuation and the implications for repurchase. Jeff Evans of Will-Burt Company lent his experience to this discussion. In the afternoon, the panel on Sub-S ESOP Issues dealt with current experiences surrounding legal, tax and practical issues in Sub-Chapter S ESOPS as addressed by William Dossenbach of Floturn and Skip Carter of The Mosser Group. The third technical panel, Trustees and Third Party Administrators, concentrated on what you need to know to actually run your ESOP plan.

There were two other panels that came close to fitting into the technical track. Participants attending the panel on Working with Financial Partners for Growth & Change, including Leslie Lauer of Alliance Holdings were given examples of innovative financing options for their companies while another panel, on Broad-Based Stock Options, including Mark Pierson of SAIC and Ed Tromczynski of Plansoft, looked at such options as a means to retain employees.

Communication in ESOP Companies
Communication is probably more important in ESOPs than in traditional companies because the employees have an ownership stake and are more concerned with the business. Three panels were organized around this general theme. The first was the panel on How to Communicate Your ESOP to Employees where Diana Tillman of YSI and Alane Updegraff of ACRT shared their views on communication, education and building a spirit of ownership. In the early afternoon, the panel on Sharing Numbers with the Employees featured a presentation by John Wolfe of Joseph Industries on how Joseph keeps employee owners informed about the financial situation. The panel on A Closer Look at How Employee Ownership Really Works tackled the problems associated with maintaining enthusiasm for the ESOP among the employees. Elaine Clement and Tammy Daugherty of Kraft Fluid Systems and David Hein of The Chilcote Company related what they do in their companies to keep interest high.

Issues for Maturing ESOPS
There were two panels geared to more mature ESOPs. The Ohio Chapter of the ESOP Association conducted a panel on ESOP Lifecycles featuring presentations by Floyd Griffin of Patio Enclosures, Barry Hoskins of Antioch Publishing and John Warfel of The James B. Oswald Company. The other panel dealt with Speed Bumps on the Employee Ownership Road, where panel members, Greg Guenther of Red Line Communications, Ed Schmitt of Riesbeck Food Markets and Dave Scott of Dimco-Gray, discussed the issues they face in moving from the first to second generation of owners and managers.

Where Do we Go From Here?
What is the future of employee ownership? That question was debated by the members of the panel on New Horizons in Employee Ownership. Moderated by Lynn Williams, this panel included ESOP heavyweights from the Steel Valley Authority, the Center for Economic and Social Justice, the Capital Ownership Group, and the OEOC.

And for anyone who hadn't yet been able to get that one important question answered, there was an ESOP Q&A panel made up of well-known experts in the field. All in all, there was something for everyone.

The day ended with a reception sponsored by Valuemetrics/VM Equity Partners where the networking and information exchange continued in a more informal setting. The previous evening's Company Showcase Reception was sponsored by BCI Group.

We will be doing this again next year in Akron/Fairlawn on April 6, 2001 at the 15th Annual Ohio Employee Ownership Conference. Please mark it on your calendar. We hope to see you again next year for an even bigger Conference!