Employee Ownership Mini Conference

Becoming Employee-Owned: Exploring Options for Small Businesses

Who should attend?

This event is intended for anyone interested learning more about conversions to worker ownership as a tool for succession planning, business retention, creating good jobs, structuring ownership at sustainable businesses, or building community wealth, including:

• business owners & entrepreneurs
• cooperative developers and other service providers
• businesses considering conversion
• small business advisors
• community groups
• business associations
• economic developers
• policy makers
• labor organizations
• finance institutions
• employee ownership advocates

This training will speak to small business owners to learn the basics of employee-ownership, and to business developers, advisors, attorneys, accountants, investors, lenders and other service providers interested in introducing employee ownership options and supporting a business owner to assess the right fit.

Sponsors

Colorado Trust Foundation, The Piton Foundation, Democracy at Work Institute, Workers to Owners, EKS&H, Key Bank, Leevers Supermarkets, New Belgium Brewery and Left Hand Brewing Company

About

Small businesses are as strong as their employees. Across the country businesses have been creating a competitive advantage by including their employees in the opportunity to own the business that they work for. This competitive advantage also allows founders and owners to create a succession plan and cash in on their life’s work while creating a plan to make sure that their legacy continues on. Employee-owned businesses have higher sales, higher employment rates, and make more money per employee.

As a growing number of baby boomers face retirement, they face the difficult reality of limited options for business succession. Often, there is no immediate buyer who would preserve their legacy and keep the business going. Across the country, however, more small business owners are choosing to sell to their employees.

Significantly, selling to employees via a shared ownership structure such as a cooperative can be a win-win-win: owners exit with a good return on their investment, the doors stay open and jobs stay put, and a whole new generation of business owners is created. These mini conference sessions are presented by the Democracy at Work Institute and the Workers to Owners Collaborative, a national network of service providers with decades of experience helping businesses transition to employee ownership. Join us beforehand for lunch with small business owners exploring conversion options.

Presentations by experts in the field, Democracy at Work Institute, the Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center and other members of the Workers to Owners collaborative, a national network of service providers with decades of experience helping businesses transition to employee ownership.

Lodging

Please note: Registrants are responsible for their own hotel room reservations. We strongly urge you to make reservations early; discounted rooms are limited.

• Online: CLOSED
• Telephone: Call (888) 627-8405

If you are calling to reserve a room and speaking with the reservations clerk, be sure to say that your room rate is per NCEO or NCEO 2017 in order to receive our special conference room rate of $189 for a single or a double room. Rates are guaranteed, if rooms in our block are still available, through March 17, 2017, but keep in mind that historically, this conference has sold out sleeping rooms as far out as 6 weeks prior to the conference dates.

Schedule of events

8:00am - Breakfast

8:30am - Framing the Day

• Halisi Vinson, Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center

9:45am - Preparing to Make the Transition

• Joe Marraffino - Democracy at Work Institute
• David R. Johanson, Esq. - Hawkins, Parnell, Thackston

11:00am - Breakouts Valuation and Financing

• Linda Phillips - Phillips Law Offices
• Jason Wiener is the Principal at Jason Wiener, P.C.

Performance & Market Differentiation

• Thomas Dudley - Certified EO,
• Christopher Arnold - Trebuchet Group

12:30pm - Lunch

1:30pm - Employee Ownership Case Studies

• Shevanthi Daniel Rabkin - Democracy at Work Institute

2:30pm - How to Offer Effective Support

• Joe Marraffino - Democracy at Work Institute

3:30 - Small Group conversations

• Building Ownership Culture
• Doing the deal
• Building a support ecosystem
• Having a community impact

5:30 - Happy hour at Modworks Coworking (110 16th St. #1400)