Employee Ownership Vision

While I am Chicago for the NCEO/Beyster Institute 2008 Employee Ownership Conference, I thought I would share Employee Ownership: It’s Good for Business – and for the Soul, an article that discusses the four previous keynote speakers and their employee ownership vision:

• Frederica Thode of Hot Dog on a Stick – "her belief that as an employee owned enterprise, the company could provide a rare opportunity to own a piece of something important and to achieve an increased level of dignity that would speak to the aspirations of even the very young people who make up the workforce of this quick-service food business."
  
  
• Bob Stiller of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters – "the employee-owners – who as a group are the company's largest shareholders – are treated as vital partners who share the vision of a company that is making a positive difference."
  
  
• Richard Hassel of Lifetouch, Inc. – "the dynamic growth that the company has experienced is a direct result of employee ownership. "The kind of creativity you see in our work doesn't come from someone standing over employees with a whip," says Hassel. "It comes from allowing employees the freedom to be creative and work hard."
  
  
• Bob Beyster of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) – "He made clear that his vision for SAIC had always been to create a company that was committed to two things above all else: delivering the highest quality technological services and deliverables to the nation; and being fair to those who did the work to increase the company's value."