ISBN: 9781933392196 Year Added to Catalog: 2006 Book Format: Paperback Book Art: 60 b&w illustrations, appendices Number of Pages: 6 x 9, 328 pages Book Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing Old ISBN: 1933392193 Release Date: May 15, 2006
Also By This Author
The Company We Keep
Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place
Designer and builder John Abrams works on the small Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard. But more importantly, he lives there. While there are specific challenges and rewards in living and working in a small, tight knit community, John emphasizes that the places where we all work and live are anything but incidental.
Martha’s Vineyard has a diverse socioeconomic base, like many small communities, with a blend year round residents and seasonal second homeowners. As co-founder of the design/building firm South Mountain Company, co-chair of the Island Affordable Housing Committee, and author of the new book The Company We Keep, John Abrams has a few ideas about affordable housing and the business of community.
Suggested interview questions:
In a resort community like Martha’s Vineyard, what’s wrong with not having affordable housing? How does affordable housing affect the community as a whole?
What are some of the biggest challenges you face in your commitment to affordable housing? In your experience, how does the size of your community affect these challenges?
Martha’s Vineyard might be considered a “runaway real estate market,” a place with exceptionally high land values. Does this put more pressure on you, as a builder, to keep housing affordable? What other programs have worked to help keep affordable housing on Martha’s Vineyard?
Do you have any experience with co-housing communities? Does co-housing seem to be an effective way of keeping housing costs down?
How can a community with many seasonal and part-time residents take advantage of houses that already exist to help provide affordable housing?
What has been your best success story with affordable housing on Martha’s Vineyard, and what can other communities learn from it?
Employee Ownership Story Tips for Journalists
John Abrams is the co-founder of South Mountain Company, a 30 year old design/build firm on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. In 1987, he sold his business to his employees (and himself), and he has since become a strong advocate of employee owned cooperative business.
Research by the National Center for Employee Ownership shows that, as of March 2005, more than 10 million Americans were working in employee ownership companies that are collectively worth more than 500 billion dollars. In 1995, that figure was half of what it is today. What has happened in the last ten years to convince so many employers and employees to pursue employee ownership possibilities?
The most common form of employee ownership is a partial ownership plan known as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). More than 11,500 US companies, including United Airlines, Andersen Windows, Procter and Gamble, and Publix Supermarkets, currently have Employee Stock Ownership Plans. Although ESOPs do not necessarily award more control to employees, roughly 75% of ESOPs take steps to broaden participation in firm management.
Fortune magazine composes an annual list of the “100 best companies to work for.” “While employee-owned companies represent a fraction of all employers, they are consistently represented (on that list),” said Dennis Long, founder and CEO of BCI group, a Wisconsin based national benefits consultancy.
Interest in employee ownership options is higher than ever. Find out about one company’s success story in The Company We Keep: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place. Part visionary business plan, part guide to democratizing the workplace, and part prescription for local economies, The Company We Keep marks an important new voice in American business.
Suggested employee ownership interview questions:
What caused you, in 1987, to give up control of your company by selling to the employees and converting to employee ownership?
How does your ownership system work?
If you had it to do all over, would you do it again?
Do you think all businesses should be employee owned?
Do you think the ownership structure is in some way responsible for your business success? Explain.
What makes you think there’s a future for this kind of shared ownership in the mainstream business world?
Why do you think the socially responsible business movement hasn’t more fully embraced shared ownership?
Is it really possible for an ever-expanding group of owners with diverse backgrounds to accept and handle the full mantle of ownership?
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