How Direct Employee Ownership Created the Right Succession Plan, and Company Culture, at Cargas
Release Date: 09/12/2024
40 Million Owners: Expanding Employee Ownership Through Acquisitions
Owners at Work
SUMMARY: In this episode of Owners at Work, we talk with Mike Brady of 40 Million Owners about how the firm helps ESOP companies grow through strategic, values-aligned acquisitions. Mike explains how their three-phase framework—design, execution, and integration—guides employee-owned firms through M&A while preserving their ownership culture. We discuss how 40 Million Owners fills a key gap for lower middle market ESOPs lacking internal deal expertise, and how its 2025 acquisition by 3LS demonstrates the model in action....
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Purpose Trusts and EOTs: Expanding the Ownership Conversation
Owners at Work
SUMMARY: In this episode of Owners at Work, we sit down with Zoe Schlag of Common Trust and Mark Hand of the Purpose Trust Ownership Network (PTON) to explore the growing momentum behind Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs) in the U.S. Zoe shares her journey from early-stage and impact investing to co-founding Common Trust, an organization dedicated to helping mission-driven businesses transition to employee ownership through EOTs. Mark—an academic and advocate for purpose-driven ownership—discusses his research and organizing work around EOTs, including the founding of PTON and his weekly...
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Making It Work: How Apis & Heritage Is Closing the Capital Gap in EO Transitions
Owners at Work
SUMMARY: In this episode of Owners at Work, we sit down with Todd Leverette and Kyle Chin-How of Apis & Heritage Capital Partners (A&H)—the 2025 recipient of the John Logue Award in Employee Ownership, which we present annually to organizations making a lasting and transformative impact in the field. A&H is a mission-driven investment firm focused on financing worker buyouts that create 100% employee-owned businesses, particularly for workforces that have been historically excluded from ownership. Todd and Kyle share their personal paths into this work, and how A&H is...
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How Expanding ESOPs Plans to Unlock Trillions in Wealth for Workers
Owners at Work
Guests: Danny Massey, Head of Strategy and Communications at Expanding ESOPs SUMMARY: In this episode of the Owners at Work podcast, we speak with Danny from Expanding ESOPs, a new national initiative focused on dramatically scaling employee ownership through policy change and public advocacy. Danny shares his journey from labor journalism and the Fight for $15 campaign to leading this effort to modernize the 51-year-old ESOP framework. We explore why expanding partial ESOPs in large companies could unlock trillions in worker wealth, and how this model can appeal across political lines....
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Building Employee Ownership Collaboration
Owners at Work
SUMMARY: In this episode Chris Cooper sits down with Jim O’Brien founder and current President of Go2Partners, a 100% ESOP Company. We talk about the interesting way in which Go2Partners was founded and funded by the employees themselves, why employee ownership was an attractive choice for him and the founders of the company, and how becoming employee owned impacted the way in which the company was managed and run day-to-day. We also talk about EO-connection a new project that Jim is leading which enables employee-owned companies to connect and purchase goods and...
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How Direct Employee Ownership Created the Right Succession Plan, and Company Culture, at Cargas
Owners at Work
SUMMARY: One of the exciting happenings in the world of employee ownership today is the proliferation of different models and methods for bringing employees into the ownership of a company. In this episode we discuss the Direct Stock Ownership model that Chip Cargas, Founder of Cargas Systems, implemented at his company. We also discussed where the model took him, and this next stage of his entrepreneurial journey, with the development of the Tandem Center for Shared Business Success, a nonprofit initiative offering pathways for business success through profit sharing and direct...
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The State of Sector: Worker Cooperatives
Owners at Work
Guests: Olga Prushinskaya and Jamie Pockrandt, Democracy at Work Institute Summary: The second most common form of employee ownership in the United States is the worker cooperative where workers participate in both the financial success and governance of the firms. Today there are over 750 worker cooperatives in the United States, which is triple the amount that existed in 2012. How do we know these numbers? Unlike the number of ESOPs which can be tracked using publicly available data generated by the government, there is no public entity that tracks worker...
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Measuring the Impact of Employee Ownership in the United Kingdom
Owners at Work
Guest: Campbell McDonald, Ownership Works SUMMARY: Much of the work for raising awareness and advocating for supportive policies for further expansion relies on data collection. When making the case for employee ownership, it is one thing to say that, in theory, employee ownership can benefit workers, companies, and communities. It is quite another to prove such claims through the collection of empirical data. In this episode, I sit down with Campell McDonald, the chief executive of Ownership at Work, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about employee...
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Gina Schaefer on The Power of Telling Your Story
Owners at Work
Guest: Gina Schaefer SUMMARY: For 38 years, the OEOC has gathered hundreds of people from across the employee ownership community at our Annual Conference and every year, we invite a keynote speaker to address those in attendance. This year, we invited Gina Schaefer, the founder, CEO, and selling owner of A Few Cool Hardware Stores, which became 100% employee-owned in 2021. Her story of how her company came to be, her approach to building culture within the business, and her tendency to build relationships outside of it speak to the power of building community and how employee-owned...
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Employee Ownership in the Americas: A Path to Shared Prosperity
Owners at Work
SUMMARY: When we think about expanding awareness about employee ownership, we often think of the United States and how much more work we have to do. However, the movement to expand the prevalence and awareness of employee ownership goes well beyond US borders. In this episode, we highlight an international example of this effort. We speak with Rodrigo Fernandez del Valle and Gonzalo Hernandez Gutierrez about an edited book they published, which includes chapters on employee ownership contributed by practitioners, researchers, and thinkers worldwide. Their goal? Introduce students,...
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SUMMARY: One of the exciting happenings in the world of employee ownership today is the proliferation of different models and methods for bringing employees into the ownership of a company. In this episode we discuss the Direct Stock Ownership model that Chip Cargas, Founder of Cargas Systems, implemented at his company. We also discussed where the model took him, and this next stage of his entrepreneurial journey, with the development of the Tandem Center for Shared Business Success, a nonprofit initiative offering pathways for business success through profit sharing and direct employee ownership. We also talk with Nate Scott, current President and CEO of Cargas Systems and discuss his journey from employee, to employee owner, and finally to his role as a leader of the company. Finally we talk with Drew Mousetis, the Executive Director of the Tandem Center and get the scoop from him on his plans to grow employee ownership using the Direct Stock Ownership model.
Further Material
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https://cargas.com/
Guest INFO:
Chip Cargas is the Founder & Chair Emeritus at Cargas Systems, an employee-owned software company with nearly 200 employees. They provide software for accounting, operations, sales and marketing. Chip founded the company in 1988 with the purpose of creating a caring environment where people would love to work. He served as CEO from the founding until December 2017, Board Chair until October 2020, and Board Member until March 2022. He was named Chair Emeritus in 2022. Chip continues to nurture the company’s purpose of “Shared Success for employees, customers, owners, partners, and community.” Cargas Systems has earned the following national & regional awards for its values and growth
Nate Scott is President and CEO of Cargas Systems, joining in 2005 as a sales consultant. He eventually became manager of the Sales and Marketing team. When Cargas launched a new business unit centered around its proprietary Cargas Energy software, he became VP. During his tenure, the business unit doubled in staff and doubled in revenue. Scott also took advantage of annual career advancement meetings and asked to lead cross-company initiatives. In 2014 he became President, and added CEO four years later.
Drew Mousetis is Executive Director of the Tandem Center for Shared Business Success with a background in business management. Before joining Tandem, Drew was a lead consultant at Cargas, where he embraced the ethos of employee ownership within a dynamic culture of engagement and profit sharing at the employee owned company. Prior to Cargas, Drew was the Director of Finance & Development at The GateHouse.
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