Industry: Cleaning Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Number of employees: 19 Became employee owned: 2019 Assistance: Project Equity, Nexus Community Partners Financing: Shared Capital Cooperative Learn more happyearthcleaning.com Project Equity – Happy Earth Just Got Happier (2020) Minnesota Public Radio – Supporters see worker co-ops as way to spread the wealth (2020) Star Tribune – Nexus Community Partners plans to […]
From Forbes: Income and wealth imbalances are getting bigger. There was a study done that found that every new tech worker in the Bay Area creates five low-wage service jobs – someone to clean their house, take care of their kids, cook food in restaurants, drive them around. So we’ve got the high-wage people, who […]
From Yes! Magazine: As Tom Adams, co-founder of Adams & Chittenden Scientific Glass, started planning his exit into retirement, he knew what he didn’t want to happen. Twenty-six years earlier, Adams was a production manager at a scientific glass blowing company in Berkeley, Calif., when the last of the company’s founders decided to sell the […]
Industry: Solar Location: California Number of employees: 30 Became employee owned: 2019 Assistance: Project Equity Learn more https://californiasolarco.com/ Yubanet – Cal Solar joins national Solar Co-Op (2020) The Union – Cal Solar becomes first worker cooperative in Nevada County (2019) Yes – Converting Businesses to Cooperatives Just Got Easier (2019) Project Equity – California Solar: Lars’ Story […]
Industry: Research and Evaluation Location: California Number of employees: 17 Became employee owned: 2019 Assistance: Project Equity From the company https://rockman.com/ Rockman – Rockman et al Announces Transition to New Employee-Owned Structure (2019) Learn more Project Equity – Rockman did the research, employee ownership won (2020) Video Employee Owned Small Businesses in California Employee Owned […]
Industry: Manufacturing Location: Berkeley, California Number of employees: 7 Became employee owned: 2019 Assistance: Project Equity Financing: Shared Capital Cooperative Learn more http://www.adamschittenden.com/ Yes – Converting Businesses to Cooperatives Just Got Easier (2019) Project Equity – For the Love of Glass Project Equity – Mo’s Story Fifty by Fifty: Berkeley, CA: Early Investor in Employee Ownership […]
From the Mercury News: When Rendell “Ren” Boguiren got a job in college at a South Bay pizzeria, he wasn’t expecting it would become a career. Now, as a part-owner in the business, he can’t imagine leaving. It was a transition made possible because co-founders Kirk Vartan and his wife, Marguerite Lee, made a decision […]
In the first video (above), Jordan Klein, the City of Berkeley’s Economic Development Manager, describes the tremendous potential that employee ownership can offer cities and why Berkeley embraces it. In the second video (above), Jordan describes how Project Equity has helped advance the city’s goal to keep businesses rooted in the local economy. Get the […]
From Fifty by Fifty: The Main Street Employee Ownership Act, passed in August 2018, relies heavily on the nation’s network of Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) to educate and support business owners in transitioning their companies to employee ownership. But for the most part, SBDC business advisors aren’t familiar with employee ownership. To begin to fill […]
From the Huffington Post: In a 4,000-square-foot industrial space tucked away in a West Berkeley neighborhood, a team of glass blowers is hard at work. In one corner, a young man named Sam is repairing a piece of laboratory glassware used for cannabis distillation, the bright orange flames from his lathe dancing just inches from […]