Wall Street Journal Features ESOPs

The February 7 issue of the Wall Street Journal has a full page of articles on ESOPs. The story was the result of a suggestion to Journal reporters from the NCEO. The stories look at how NCEO members Smith-Bucklin used its ESOP to acquire another company, Van Meter Industrial revived its ownership culture, and Brookfield Engineering Labs diversified its ESOP to provide employees with greater long-term financial security. A related Journal Web page has a terrific podcast of an interview with Web Industries Hartford's Michael Quarrey about how the company has used employee involvement to create a strikingly productive company (Quarrey and several Web Industries employees will be presenting their story at our annual conference in Chicago). The Web site also has other useful material on employee ownership. The site can be found here.

Given the importance of this first-ever special coverage of ESOPs in the Journal, we want to encourage NCEO members to send the link to their contacts. Suggested language for the email appears below:

I wanted to call your attention to what I think is a great set of stories you might not have seen.

The Wall Street Journal on February 7 ran a full-page of articles on employee stock ownership plans. There is a link to all this material and more at online.wsj.com/small-business/small-business-link.

I think this is one of the best explorations of employee ownership in a major publication ever produced, and anyone with any interest in the topic should take a look.

The article was the product of a suggestion to the paper from Corey Rosen of the National Center for Employee Ownership. The center is a great resource on employee ownership. They have books, webinars, and an upcoming annual meeting that covers all aspects of the topic. Their site is well worth visiting as well. Their site is at www.nceo.org.