Celebrating EO Month 2025
There’s a machinist, working amid the noise and heat of the factory floor, focused on precision, quality, and getting the work out on time. Or a worker at a warehouse, finding operational efficiencies while preparing a roll of fabric to go out to a customer. A furniture finisher ensuring the surface can survive years in a daycare or preschool. Or an installer putting the finishing touches on a new water heater, taking pride in not just the function but also the beauty of the piping layout.
To many people, it’s just another day at work. But there’s something different here that sets these scenes apart from other workplaces. These people own the companies they work for, not metaphorically or on a motivational poster, but literally. Through employee ownership, they’re business owners, building wealth and improving their businesses through their daily work.
October is Employee Ownership Month, where we celebrate the millions of Americans who work for their businesses and own them. With Empowered Ventures celebrating its 5-year anniversary this year, it’s also a moment to reflect on the growth that was only possible because of one crucial ingredient: EV’s employee owners.
The Foundation
The story begins in 2010, when TVF became employee-owned through a sale to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). That transition created not just shared ownership, but a culture of ownership thinking that would become the foundation for everything that followed.
After a prolonged search for acquisition targets in TVF’s industry and the acquisition of Pacific Coast Fabrics in 2017, then-TVF President Chris Fredericks first presented his vision for a diversified ESOP holding company to TVF’s Board in 2019. Board member Bruce Kidd recognized the potential: “When Chris shared his idea of creating an ESOP holding company, I thought it was a very creative way to diversify TVF.”
Before Empowered Ventures, there was the Not Yet Named Diversified ESOP Holding Company
The Board discussions weren’t without scrutiny. As Bruce recalls, “there was a healthy debate about the concept. Not that we weren’t all impressed with the vision and the details Chris had organized already, but this was a very novel concept as a business model. There were very few holding companies, especially ESOP holding companies, in the US doing something like this.”
Despite the novelty, EV Board Chair John Craun saw the logic immediately. “I was excited about the potential,” he says. “It made a lot of sense. It vastly increases the range of options that are out there for purchasing as opposed to just looking for fabric distribution companies, and diversifying the ESOP is hugely valuable [for employee owners].”
Early Builders
After EV officially launched in 2020, the opportunity arose to join something unprecedented. It required people willing to embrace uncertainty and build systems that had never existed before. Spencer Springer joined as EV’s first official employee in 2020. As Vice President, he helped EV successfully find and acquire its first three new businesses before pursuing other career opportunities.
Tabitha Lewis joined EV as controller in 2021, bringing ESOP experience but facing a new challenge: tracking the financial function of multiple companies. “There’s no playbook, there’s no right or wrong answer. Our approach is: this just feels right for now, and we’ll see how it goes.”
Emily Bopp, Chief of Staff, joined as the fourth employee, bringing consulting experience but finding something different at EV. What attracted her wasn’t just the business model, but seeing someone passionate about an idea. When she first encountered the EV concept, she recalled: “I was not able to digest the potential or the possibility for it, but it intrigued me so much. And what I remember was Chris’s authentic passion for it.”
Michael Algrim, VP of Portfolio Operations, joined as EV’s fifth employee in October 2022. He noticed that every business experiences growing pains, especially when making acquisitions. Skepticism from new employee owners became understandable and expected, which came to life when Brad Benoure announced to his employees that their company was sold to EV. Mike recalls, “The Benoure [announcement] was probably the most eye-opening to me, that it really isn’t a celebration, it’s kind of melancholy in a way. But people are curious, and they want to know more because they are used to there being a catch.”
EV’s Board and Early Builders
Transforming Skepticism
It isn’t just the employees of newly acquired businesses that view employee ownership as too-good-to-be-true. The transformation from skepticism to genuine ownership thinking requires proof, and employee owners provided it through their daily commitment and growing understanding of what ownership means.
“I now approach those announcements as people needing to learn what this is all about and then feel it,” Algrim reflects. “But in time, you can look at businesses that have been employee-owned for longer and see, there’s a high level of ownership mindset or agency.”
EV has taken on the role of helping new companies move up the employee ownership learning curve, and the change has been noticeable in newer companies. “Employee ownership culture is feeding and growing at a much faster rate in the newer companies than it did in the original ones,” Algrim notes.
TVF President Tad Calahan saw this evolution across the growing family of companies: “Watching each company go through their initial ESOP journey and seeing their teams appreciate the experience of being an owner has been incredibly rewarding. It’s also personally rewarding to provide support and experience to these newer companies and assure them that the employee ownership mindset and experience is a marathon not a sprint.” The proof came in tangible ways. As Calahan observed: “By adding these additional companies and providing the same life-changing outcomes that we all hold dear, is really special.”
Daily Difference-Makers
Employee ownership manifests itself not just in annual statements or retirement celebrations, but in the daily experience of having agency and dignity in the workplace. John Craun frames this in terms of fundamental human nature: “Most people want to work. They want to contribute. They don’t want to just sit around and collect a check, but to be committed to doing something and doing it well. It’s a fundamental human need.” EV’s approach recognizes this human element. As Tabitha Lewis explains: “We don’t take a harsh approach. When somebody is struggling, we’re not slash-and-burn. We don’t do it that way.”
Mike Algrim uses the phrase “ESOP in a box” to describe how EV removes traditional barriers to employee ownership. “For us to show up and provide ESOP in a box, I think is a true value add for a seller,” he explains. Companies joining EV benefit from employee ownership without the administrative burden of running their own ESOP. In this model, leaders and workers have one job—to do great work.
Building Something Bigger, Together
Five years later, the growth speaks for itself: one company has become five, spanning diverse industries and creating hundreds of employee owners. But the vision extends beyond current numbers.
John Craun’s confidence has grown with the results: “I’ve become a big believer in this model. There’s the potential for EV to be 5, 10, 20 times the size it is now, decades down the road.”
Board member Sean-Tamba Matthew, who joined in 2023, brings an industry perspective on what EV has accomplished. “What I see with EV is great,” he reflects. “Really using the ESOP structure in a way to scale and grow employee ownership.” He sees EV as “setting the standard for what it means to evolve employee ownership at the ESOP company level.”
Bruce Kidd articulates the ultimate vision: “The ultimate opportunity or greatest and most important potential impact of the EV model is to have a dramatic positive impact on the lives of hundreds of employees and their families. There is no greater reward of a job well executed than that.”
Mike Algrim frames it in terms of broader social impact: “The biggest picture in all of this is that I hope through this we revive some hope in the American dream—buying a house and retiring. Younger generations have lost a lot of hope, and they just counted all that stuff out.”
Employee Ownership Month
October is Employee Ownership Month, which celebrates what happens when ordinary workers get extraordinary opportunities through business ownership.
Those machinists at Firstar Precision Corp and Paramount Plastics, the warehouse workers at TVF, the finishers at Whitney Brothers®, the installers at Benoure Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning? They’re all business owners. The past five years proved that employee ownership can scale beyond single companies. They demonstrated that people embrace ownership when it’s real, not symbolic. They showed that businesses can thrive when workers share the value they create.
Most importantly, they proved that with the right people—employee owners willing to believe in something new and work to make it succeed—extraordinary things become possible.
As Emily Bopp reflects on the journey: “To be able to see it actually working, we’re building this thing and in doing it, seeing milestones happen, seeing companies added, seeing cultures being transformed, seeing people come unlocked, seeing all these things happen. I just have so much hope for the future because it’s growing and it’s working. We’re doing it.”
CEO Chris Fredericks is excited as Empowered Ventures looks ahead to the next five years and beyond: “EV’s foundation is solid: hundreds of employee owners who are embracing ownership thinking, who understand that their daily work builds both company value and personal wealth, and who’ve created a culture that makes the next company eager to be part of something special.”
EVers made it possible. They continue to make it possible. And that’s worth celebrating.
Just some of those that made it possible: employee ownership committees and the EV team during last year’s EO Summit
