Business View Magazine - Nov 2023

124 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 11 and Debra stepped into their retirement– although they both currently occupy seats on the company’s Board of Directors. According to President and CEO Danny Steiger, their support has been absolutely vital in the growth of the company as an ESOP, saying that it has been “fantastic having them as a resource, [people] who know the business so well… it’s been an amazing gift that they’ve given to the employees.” Employee Engagement as a Driver of Company Success Since transitioning into an ESOP, Lumber Traders has experienced tremendous growth, boasting over seventy employees. The key to its development lies in the way employees are handled relative to their ESOP benefits. “One of the foundational building blocks is education and awareness,” Steiger says, explaining that that is an absolute necessity for any ESOP’s success, “if employees don’t understand [the structure], then the business is just paying out a ton of capital… and not really reaping any benefits to the company.” To ensure that employees know the full extent of their ESOP benefits, in 2019, Lumber Traders initiated annual education classes that every new employee is initially required to attend. Existing employees also have the option to retake them to refresh themselves on how the benefit works. Additionally, the company has changed the format of its stakeholder meetings, which now focus on the driving factors behind share value so that employees can see the connection between that, their efforts, and ultimately, their retirement benefits. The company also makes use of what Steiger calls his ESOP Master Spreadsheet, which is a visionary resource that he created to accurately calculate projections of what the ESOP benefit will look like ten years down the road. With this combination of immediate education, updated benefit performance, Resilience, adaptability, and foresight define its approach as it carries the unwavering spirit of collaboration, innovation, and dedication to the workforce that makes it all possible. A Start on the Heels of Succession Lumber Traders came into being as an ESOP under the exact conditions many ESOPs today hope to resolve. The former owners, Arnold & Debra Schouten, were approaching retirement and needed to make their exit in a way that preserved the value of their employees as well as the legacy they’d spent so many years building. Because the company was the combination of two other businesses, Angeles Millwork & Lumber Co. and Hartnagel Building Supply, liquidating assets was not an option. So, after consulting with an expert in January 2004, Lumber Traders officially stepped into the realm of employee ownership while Arnold