ESOP Association Blog
The ESOP Association has announced the following on their website:
“Employee Ownership Blog -- COMING OCTOBER 1”
They are currently testing the blog and working out the bugs. We will provide you with complete coverage and a link as soon as it is up and running.
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) (San Diego, CA)
SAIC founder chronicles past success tells the story of Dr. J. Robert Beyster and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), one of the largest technology integration companies in the world and a major defense contractor company.
Employee Ownership
One of their main principles that Beyster feels was unique for his company was employee ownership:
“I think it is helpful to understand the start-up of the company in the context
of the American business environment in the late 1960s,” Beyster said. “There
were two principles we employed that were radical at the time. One was employee ownership. This was a time when ownership in privately held companies was generally considered a privilege granted only to the founder and a very close
circle of top executives. From the very beginning, we used company stock to
recruit, retain and motivate employees. As the company grew, the value of their
stock increased accordingly.”
Competence and Satisfaction
He felt that the company was successful because “we focused on work that we enjoyed and could do well. We concentrated on serving our customers and making the customers happy, and we were not motivated strictly by making money.”
Experimentation Culture
They focused on an experimentation culture:
“SAIC was also unusual because we created a culture where employees were
encouraged to experiment constantly,” he said. “This was a time when the ideas
espoused in the book ‘The Organization Man’ were in full bloom. Corporate
managers and employees were rewarded for conforming rather than for thinking
outside the box.”…“We worked closely with them to make sure no one abused this
privilege, but we were fairly open to ideas in a lot of areas,” Beyster said.
“It turned out that our employees liked to work on exciting and challenging
projects based on their merit, and the company took off based on that approach.”
Pamphlet and Book
In 1987 Beyster wrote a pamphlet called The Principles and Practices of SAIC, which described 12 important principles that were used to guide SAIC. Beyster recently wrote a book based off of these 12 principles called The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8-Billion Employee-Owned Technology Company.
Blog
Beyster also is the author of Dr. Beyster’s Blog.
We will discuss the book, share some book reviews, and discuss the blog in upcoming posts.
Countrywide Financial Stock Drop Lawsuit
Another stock drop lawsuit is in the news: Countrywide Financial 401(k) Plan Participants Sue Over Plan Losses:
“Employees enrolled in Countrywide Financial Corp.’s 401(k) plan claim that
illegal actions by those overseeing the plan led to millions of dollars in
losses during a recent stock plummet.”
Here is a link to the press release: Keller Rohrback L.L.P. Announces Preliminary Settlement Approval on Behalf of Participants and Beneficiaries in the Visteon Corp. Retirement Plans
Here is our most recent discussion on Stock Drop Litigation.
New Information Pages
The following information pages are now available in the Rules and Regulations section:
DOL Final Regulation - Amendment to Interpretive Bulletin 95-1 (Sep 12, 2007)
DOL Proposed Regulation - Selection of Annuity Providers for Individual Account Plans (Sep 12, 2007)
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions about this post, The One-Stop ESOP Blog, or ESOPs in general, please let me know.
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