Chatsworth Products Inc. (CPI) is one of over 11,000 ESOP (employee stock ownership program) companies in the United States. The employee owners of Chatsworth Products, Inc. are happy to celebrate employee ownership month each October. We believe our ESOP offers numerous benefits for the company, employee and customer. Owning a portion of the company encourages employees to think and act as a business owner, which in turn, contributes to an increase in overall productivity, higher performance and greater employee participation.
“The recent Economic Performance Survey by the Employee Ownership Foundation shows that 88.2% of companies believe that ESOPs are good for business,” said J. Michael Keeling, president of The ESOP Association.
Last year CPI was awarded “Best ESOP Company Communication- Small Company” and “Best Combined Effort ESOP Committee/Communications” by the National ESOP Association- Southwest Chapter.
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This October, CPI employee owners are excited to have our Chairman of the Board, Larry Moreau, Company President & CEO, Larry Renaud, and Corporate Secretary, Larry Varblow visit each location for an entertaining and educational presentation of CPI’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan which will be followed up by a company luncheon for all to enjoy.
CPI will also play games such as ESOP Bingo in which the employee owners are randomly assigned to teams and are challenged to recall ESOP and company trivia answers to mark their bingo cards for a win. For example, the host may say, “This is our company purpose” and the employee owners will have to find the answer: “To Delight the Customer” on their bingo card. This ensures that employees are up-to-date on their ESOP knowledge and reinforces our company core values which are what CPI was originally founded. We take great pride in our focal core value of 2009 “Teamwork, Caring and Commitment”.
Although October seems to be the time of year we celebrate being an ESOP, there are monthly activities we hold to serve as a reminder of what it means. This year we were able to help hundreds of students’ (K through 12) receive school supplies in our annual “Fill the Bus” fundraiser and our Coat Drive provided brand new coats to numerous disadvantaged children in the community. By the end of 2009, our company-wide Food Drive will help to provide meals for countless underprivileged families in our local communities.
For more information on employee ownership, please visit www.esopassociation.org. Nancy Caraveo, Lindsay Klein, Josh Young