Employee Ownership in manufacturing

my name is Charlie tilt and I am acting as CEO currently and my wife and I have been the co-owners of hummingbird since 2003. so we we're aware that we needed an exit plan at that time I think it was sort of an assume that we would sell a company to somebody else but also we were investing in the company every year we didn't take the money from the company we continued to reinvest in growth and we had extensive growth and so there was a lot of Need for Capital and we both borrowed money and reinvested our own profitability from the company and then there was this what's the impact on everybody who works here and that became more and more profoundly important question as the people who came were more committed more skilled and you know I felt both at the level of the professionals who worked there but also the individuals who've been here 12 years that impact of the change of ownership would have a significant consequence on other people so trying to think oh how do I manage that in a useful way and still take care of what Julie and I needed was kind of where we ended up with the idea of of employee ownership I looked into ESOP I contacted people who had helped create the legal format for that and talk to them about how to fit for a company I tried but each of those individual investigations is a tremendous effort to have a journey of Discovery and followed by this fits or it doesn't fit and it was exhausting to try and fit that in as a business owner along with all the other challenges that a business brings up in a day-to-day way and so I was like I'm not going to get this done in a timely fashion a and I'm going to doubt the outcome and so it really was the relationship with project Equity that helped me dive into this in the way that it's important and essential the employee ownership governance model comes responsive to the needs of the employees rather than the company doing whatever it does and the employees being at the consequence of that that's truly very exciting I believe that the strength of the company comes from the cohesive interaction of a team of people none of whom are the superstar that is the most interesting and positive experience for me as an individual to be part of a team and not be be the leader at the at the top who doesn't know all what's happening but somehow is supposed to be responsible for it all turning out well so I would rather have us succeed as a team and and I think the ownership model supports that in 100 way the way that I feel about the employee ownership is mostly privileged Charlie is so dear to me and so thoughtful and this just keeps it going now I have extra fuel to put in that extra effort every day in all the little things and try to help others do the same as a company and in a warehouse environment especially where your Material Handling in large volumes this place has more of an adherence to safety and wellness than almost anywhere else that I've been and I've been in several other environments so as people also get to have the idea that their effort and their care that they put in at work is going to be returned in a monetary fashion perhaps like then they get to add a little bit more to it and then it's this snowballing effect we get to enjoy ourselves more get compensated more and just care more about what we do while being cared for by the people around us and that makes every day more fun to be here I'm no longer the most important person and that change is a requirement of my participating in the actual exchange if you will so if I'm not ready to offer that then I should just offer it and if I am ready to then I need to be ready to to handle the consequences emotionally and intellectually I guess yeah so that that's the personal side of it on the business side I am able to also protect the interest that I have in the company being successful because I want the money that that it owes me right and so I have a vested and common interest with everybody else and being successful still it's not like I'm I'm there as a hanger on and so that motivation and interest remains exciting and interesting unlike anywhere that I've been and worked prior I get to completely trust each and every one of my co-workers and that is such an amazing feeling I can't explain how good it is to just come in every day and trust that everybody is trying to do their best and that is really special I would like to see this be an idea that works so that others can start doing this and if it does work out well for us and we succeed in this way and prosper then it's going to be that much easier for others to take this leap and move in a direction of employee-owned trust