Bob Moore-big hearted capitalist shared wealth with workers
Bob Moore handed over Food Company to employees
An American
Businessman Bob Moore has transferred his food company to employees Bob’s Red
Mill Natural Foods in MILWAUKIE-Oregon-USA.
The company was founded in 1978. The company’s annual revenue is
estimated around $50 million. The company has 209 employees that will now
become the owners of the company. The company is now in transition to become
employees owned company.
Capitalist
are generally known for their lust for profits and money. They produce goods
and services to earn maximum profits. But Bob Moore is not like the rest. He
has decided to hand over his food factory to his workers.
The 81 years
old businessman set example for other businessman to follow. On his 81st
birthday- he announced his plan to handover the company to employees. The
workers who were there to celebrate his birthday were surprised to get a
memorable birthday gift from Bob.
Moore, whose
mutual loves of healthy eating and old-world technologies spawned an
internationally distributed line of products, responded with a gift of his own
-- the whole company. The Employee Stock Ownership Plan Moore unveiled means
that his 209 employees now own the place and its 400 offerings of stone-ground
flours, cereals and bread mixes.
An employee
stock ownership plan, or ESOP, is a retirement plan in which the company
contributes its stock to the plan to be held in trust for the benefit of its
employees. The stock is never bought or held directly.
Vested
employees are sent annual reports detailing their respective stakes in the
company. When those employees quit or retire, they receive in cash whatever
amount they -- and the company, through increased revenues, new sales and controlled
costs -- are due.
"Eventual
payouts could be substantial," said John Wagner, the company's chief
financial officer and, along with Moore, one of four partners. Moore said he
began thinking about succession about nine years ago. He'd heard about employee
stock option programs and got much more serious about the idea three years ago.
"In
some ways I had a choice," Moore said of what he could have done with the
company he founded with his wife, Charlee, in 1978. "But in my heart, I
didn't. These people are far too good at their jobs for me to just sell
it."
It's not
that the offers aren't there. Hardly a day goes by that Nancy Garner, Moore's
executive assistant, doesn't field a call or letter from someone wanting to buy
the privately held company or take it public.
Moore's own
background is in electrical and mechanical engineering, but he fell in love
with the mechanics of stone grinding in the 1960s after reading about old
stone-grinding flour mills.
At about the
same time, Charlee began sharing with him her delvings into the nutritional
benefits of eating whole grain foods. The couple put their passions to work by
starting, with their three sons, their first milling operation in Redding,
Calif.
In 1978, the
couple moved to Portland to retire. Moore's idea at the time, reflecting his
long-held sense of spirituality, was to learn the Bible in its original
languages. A chance walk past a closed mill site near Oregon City changed
everything.
"I call
it my emotional epiphany," Moore said. "Whatever excuse I care to
give, I was just sucked into it like a vortex."
1988 arson
destroyed the mill, when Moore was 60. Undeterred, he rebuilt the operation,
moved once due to space needs and now occupies a 15-acre production facility
and a two-acre headquarters and retail outlet along Oregon 224 in Milwaukie.
Three
production shifts, running six days a week, turn out a line of goods
distributed throughout North America, Asia and the Middle East.
The company
earned an extra splash of international recognition when a team traveled to
Scotland and, apparently feeling their oats, won the world's porridge-making
championship.
Khalid Bhatti
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