[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 71 (Wednesday, June 7, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1035]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            VERMONT'S OUTSTANDING BUSINESS IS EMPLOYEE-OWNED

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 7, 2006

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the Nation's attention, 
and to celebrate, the winner of this year's Deane C. Davis Outstanding 
Vermont Business Award, King Arthur, Flour of Norwich, Vermont.
  Founded in 1790, back when the Nation's President was George 
Washington, King Arthur is the oldest flour company in America. It is 
also one of the most progressive. It had three owners 215 years ago; 
today, it has 200. For those who work at King Arthur Flour are not just 
employees: They own the company. In 1996 its management began an 
Employee Stock Ownership Plan [ESOP]. Today, King Arthur Flour is a 100 
percent employee-owned company.
  And King Arthur's president and CEO, Steven Voigt, is helping 
businesses all across the Nation follow the company's example, for 
Steve Voigt is chair of the ESOP Association. The ESOP Association, 
founded in 1978, is a national non-profit membership organization, with 
18 local chapters, serving approximately 2,400 ESOPs.
  King Arthur Flour itself was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 
1790 and moved its headquarters to Vermont in 1986. The company has 
grown since then from a regional staple to a brand known nationwide for 
its purity and consistent quality; from a small mail-order business 
with five employees in 1990 to the premier baker's resource in America 
with nearly 200 employees today; from a family-owned operation for five 
generations to a 100 percent employee-owned business. Its flour is sold 
in supermarkets in everyone of the Nation's 50 States.
  While most of America's flour makers for the retail market have seen 
their sales decline, King Arthur has bucked the trend: Its sales have 
increased 15 percent over the past decade. This should be no surprise. 
Employee ownership is good for business.
  Ten years ago, King Arthur made the move toward employee ownership. 
It holds quarterly owners' meetings, and its employees gather monthly 
in what they call ``Town Meetings'' to keep information flowing and to 
make sure decisions are participatory. The company's books are open.
  An employee-owned company can have a larger and more progressive 
agenda than just its core business. King Arthur's employee-owners have 
established a program that allows them to volunteer up to 40 hours a 
year to a non-profit orgnization--and get paid by the company for that 
time. King Arthur knows that simply making and selling healthy, non-
bleached and non-bromated flour is not enough: It has been offering 
free bread-making classes to 12,000 people a year in 40 American 
cities. And it has taught over 60,000 middle school students to bake 
bread--and taught them about giving and sharing, by providing the 
students ingredients so that they can bake bread for local foodbanks.
  King Arthur Flour employees are worth recognizing because they show 
so plainly that CEOs who run companies from the top down, and who 
reward themselves with 431 times the amount that their average 
employees make, are not essential to running a corporation efficiently 
and well. ESOPS are soundly managed, good to work for, forward-looking, 
environmentally conscious. And they make a profit.
  So there are many reasons why, in Vermont, one of our major ESOPs, 
King Arthur Flour, has just been recognized by the Chamber of Commerce 
and Vermont Business Magazine as the outstanding business in the entire 
state.
  There is much to be learned from the model that the employees at King 
Arthur Flour have developed so successfully.

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