Twins and Employee Ownership
Executive Director
In a Forbes blog post, Mary Josephs reports the story of two twin sisters who both applied for jobs at employee-owned WinCo Foods in 1991 at the age of 19. Because of a store policy at the time against nepotism, Cathy got the WinCo job. She still works there today. She has almost $1 million in stock through the company's ESOP, and she says she could retire today.
Her twin sister Deborah's job path was different: she worked "three years at the regional telephone company; some time at a department store and at a pharmacy; finally at a doctor's office for 17 years. By 2008, Deborah...had about $30,000 in a retirement account, and it was mostly in stocks. The market collapse roughly cut that total in half."
Josephs quotes Cathy: "This is the chance of a lifetime . . . When people quit WinCo, I ask them, 'Are you crazy?'"