Emily Bopp [00:00:00]:
The other thing that's been bouncing around in my mind is, yeah, two acquisitions done. But I think sometimes what's really fun is to imagine the numbers of employees who are now employee owners. You know, 130 people to potentially have life changing financial wherewithal going into their their futures. That's what just jazzes me to no end.
Chris Fredericks [00:00:24]:
Welcome to Empowered Owners, the podcast that takes you inside Empowered Ventures. I'm your host, Chris Fredericks. In each episode, I'll have a discussion with one of our employees to discover and highlight their distinct personalities, perspectives and skills, while also keeping you in the loop with exclusive news, updates on company performance, and a glimpse into the future plans of Empowered Ventures. This is an opportunity for me to learn more about our amazing employee owners and an opportunity for you to hear regularly from me and others from within Empowered Ventures.
Chris Fredericks [00:00:59]:
Welcome to another episode of Empowered Owners, the community building podcast about and for the employee owners of Empowered Ventures. My name is Chris Fredericks, and today I'm recapping our latest fiscal year with EVs Chief of Staff, Emily Bopp. With two acquisitions, two new hires, the launch of Healthcare for Us, and more. It's been a big year for EV and all EVers. In this episode, we talk about our year and preview what's ahead for Empowered Ventures. With that, let's get to my conversation with Emily. Hi, Emily. Welcome back to Empowered Owners.
Emily Bopp [00:01:34]:
Thank you. It's good to be back. And I can't believe we're recapping another year already. Where does the time go?
Chris Fredericks [00:01:41]:
Unbelievable.
Emily Bopp [00:01:42]:
Absolutely unbelievable. So as of the recording of this podcast, we are still about six weeks out from the end of the fiscal year, but when it releases, it will be about the end of the fiscal year. And so we thought we'd go ahead and and do a recap, which I love because I saw a quote once somewhere that said, we don't learn by doing. We learn by reflecting on what we've done. Because I love the phrase learn by doing that has characterized my career. I don't know about you.
Chris Fredericks [00:02:06]:
For sure.
Emily Bopp [00:02:07]:
Yeah. But to that added twist of reflecting on what we've done. So, yeah, thanks for having me on to do a little annual reflection. I mean, my goodness, thinking back a year ago, coming up on April 1st, we came out of the gate with a bang. You want to take us back through our acquisitions activity this last year?
Chris Fredericks [00:02:26]:
Yeah. So fiscal year has been quite a success on the acquisitions front. So April 1, nearly a year ago, Benoure Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning joined Empowered Ventures. And that was really exciting. And fun on a number of levels. It was our first acquisition in the Northeast. It was our first in a new space for us, which we're excited to be in, which is kind of trades, construction and trades. And Benoure is just an awesome company.
Chris Fredericks [00:02:53]:
And it's now with the year of hindsight, it's proven to be what we hoped it would be as a business and as people and everything is checked out. There's, of course, always things you learn once you work with people and with a company, but nothing bad at all. It's all. It's been a wonderful experience and really crazy that it's been a year since Benoure joined Empowered Ventures. Yeah.
Emily Bopp [00:03:16]:
And can you talk a little bit about. You mentioned this is our first dipping of our toe in construction and trades. What's our vision for that vertical?
Chris Fredericks [00:03:23]:
I think we'd love to see more companies in that vertical join Empowered Ventures. You know, the other vertical we're. We're in, we call just kind of industrials, which is manufacturing, distribution, B2B services. The rest of our companies kind of fit under that umbrella, so to speak. But yeah, we think the trades, blue collar work. You know, it's a really great business to be in. It's got some stickiness with the customers, the ability of the team members, the employees in those companies. They can really make an impact on the business itself and how they think about the work that they do.
Chris Fredericks [00:04:00]:
And so it's a really great fit for employee ownership. So we love. We'd love to keep growing in that area, for sure.
Emily Bopp [00:04:06]:
Yeah. That's so interesting. Well, and then talking about industrials and manufacturing, that's a great segue into the second acquisition that we were able to get done this year. You want to walk us back through that little memory lane? It's pretty fresh.
Chris Fredericks [00:04:19]:
That's pretty fresh. We just did that acquisition of Whitney Brothers here a few weeks ago. Children's Furniture, a pre- educational furniture manufacturer based in New Hampshire. Keene, New Hampshire. And it's 120-year-old business, which all by itself is just unbelievable to think about that it started as a toy manufacturing company, Wooden toys. I mean, I wish I had like a lot more information about the full history of that company because I'm sure it's so fascinating. We know some piece. Bits and pieces, but it's so, so old.
Chris Fredericks [00:04:54]:
We don't know everything about it. But it's such a neat company today. It's a modern manufacturing company with a really automated, not a fully automated manufacturing process, but a lot of automation. Has been incorporated into it and it's. It services a really unique niche for us and a whole new niche which is kind of the education space again, daycare, pre-K kind of education, but very diversifying for empowered ventures to be moving into the education space which should have a little more consistency to it than, you know, many other industries. That world just follows different kind of drivers, economic drivers. And then similar to Benoure, it's just the people are awesome, really great people. I think employee ownership is going to be a great fit for that company.
Chris Fredericks [00:05:41]:
So for us to two acquisitions in about 10 months is really a lot for us. We don't plan to do more than one or two ever in a given, in a given year. Today, maybe in the future, someday we could do more than that. But that's doing two is a lot for us and quite a success for sure for us for this year.
Emily Bopp [00:06:01]:
Yeah. So many thoughts going through my head. One about Whitney Brothers and being 120 year old business and how many times it has reinvented itself in that period of time and how many times there was a leader at the helm who saw the opportunity. I mean, I think about in the 70s when they morphed from wooden toys to wooden furniture and how fortuitous because in the 70s was when plastic toys took over the market. And it's almost like a Polaroid example gone well, where this business was able to adjust and meet market demands with its current capability in ways that morphed and shaped it. I love that. I love thinking future wise and how all of our companies can imagine various scenarios where, you know, it may be time to build on whatever current capability we have to morph into the future. So I love that we have a historical presence with us that's done it.
Emily Bopp [00:06:55]:
I think there's something really special about that. The other thing that's been bouncing around in my mind is yeah, two acquisitions done. But I think sometimes what's really fun is to imagine the numbers of employees who are now employee owners. Yes. Two businesses now have a future and a home that's, you know, secure with us. But how many individuals are now experiencing employee ownership? I mean, I forget the number. How many between the two businesses?
Chris Fredericks [00:07:24]:
Between the two, we're probably looking at 130ish people total. You know, roughly that joined our employee ownership group this year, which is so, so amazing.
Emily Bopp [00:07:34]:
I mean, 130 people. And it might not, I guess for our internal folks who understand the power and the potential of employee ownership, they're like, yeah, we feel the weight of that but for anybody who's listening to this, who maybe doesn't, hasn't personally experienced, you know, the power and the weight of employee ownership and the potential, that's, you know, 130 people to potentially have life changing financial wherewithal going into their futures. That's what just jazzes me to no end. And I know you too, but I think sometimes to just keep that fire in the furnace, it helps me to reflect on the impact that we're having. And you know what this is really ultimately all about.
Chris Fredericks [00:08:15]:
Yeah, no, I mean that resonates for me perfectly. You've seen now with us a few times and we've all experienced that doing these acquisitions is a lot of work. And it does help a lot to feel that motivation and that fuel afterwards when people, you know, get excited and realize what has changed for them and their families and stuff. That is ultimately what really what drives me too. So it's really fun that we get to do that kind of work.
Emily Bopp [00:08:41]:
Well, speaking of there being a lot of work to do at EV this last year we ended up adding two new hires. So again, just reflecting back share with us that what, what led to us deciding to bring two new folks on.
Chris Fredericks [00:08:54]:
Two new folks and just zooming out too. We're right at five years really around where eat in terms of EV once this comes out. So you know, we've grown from zero to now seven people over five years. So that's a lot of growth. It's a one to two people a year we're adding. So yeah, this year we just continued the trend of adding a couple people and continuing to build our team. Casey and Christine joined and they're doing awesome work obviously. And it's just really fun honestly to keep building this team with people we like working with and that take pride in their work and also believe in the mission.
Chris Fredericks [00:09:28]:
So assuming we continue to kind of grow at the pace we've been growing, I think adding one to two people a year might continue to be the path we're still on. We don't know every, you know, new position we'll fill in the coming years. We're kind of opportunistic and how we think about what the right next step is when we add people to the team, but continues to feel about right that one to two moves us forward.
Emily Bopp [00:09:51]:
Well, I will say from my perspective as Chief of Staff and having the alignment among our team being one of the things that I wake up in the morning thinking about. I have noticed that this past year we shifted into another year As a team, there is something really beautiful happening now. And I feel like every time we add people now to this team, to your point, we're only five years into this thing. Every time we add now, we have more of a sense of who we are and the us of us. And so being able to add folks into that team, we can just be in stride that much faster and that much more with that much more efficacy, I guess, is the word that I'm looking for. So, yeah, it's been fun to see that we've crossed over. We've kind of gotten over a hump, so to speak, as a little fledgling team. And it's really cool to see the trajectory that we're on in terms of growth and expanding our capability.
Emily Bopp [00:10:45]:
So, yeah, goodness. Thinking back over the year, well, we had one sort of surprise initiative that I might be partly to blame for, for sure, or maybe totally to blame for, I don't know. So about this time last year when we had our employee ownership communications committees together for our annual summit, we had a breakout session looking at and talking about healthcare. And coming out of that session, it was a, it was a vibrant conversation. It was, what were. What are your experiences? What are your frustrations? What are you seeing? What are you hearing? What are your concerns? Where are we going? Coming out of that session, there was enough interest to continue on with a focus group that would continue looking at that. And we did. Maybe not as in depth as we could have in retrospect, but it was sufficient to get us to the point to decide that actually this needed to be an evergreen program.
Emily Bopp [00:11:42]:
This needed to be an evergreen initiative. Whatever this was, I don't even think we really knew what this was. We just knew we needed to lean in to healthcare. So with the help of that focus group, we launched this program called Healthcare for Us. And we continue to sort of build a plane as we're flying it. But I'm just curious, from your perspective, what encourages you about this effort?
Chris Fredericks [00:12:06]:
Yeah, a few things for sure. I mean, one, just your passion for it and Kim's. Kim Dinwiddie, our VPHR at the holding company, she's an expert in kind of all things HR. And so having a group of people who are willing to kind of roll up their sleeves and commit to something for a long term effort is really awesome and it's been neat. UI and Kim, we recorded a podcast episode kind of about where we're at with Healthcare for Us right now. So hopefully people haven't listened. They should check that out because. And we won't go into as much depth here, but just that we're off and running is really encouraging to me because, you know, this effort, which is really just our way to say we are leaning into this topic and we're going to do figure out how we can make an impact with the, with healthcare and health benefits with our people.
Chris Fredericks [00:12:58]:
We're going to engage with our, our employee owners, we're going to help them, they're going to help us. We're all going to lean in this and we're going to figure out what's best for EV when it comes to these topics and for our people because it's a, it's a hard challenge that all companies, all people in this country are facing the cost of healthcare, lack of quality care in some cases. None of us cause this problem. It's a systemic problem. Whatever you think about it, it's just a huge challenge. And some companies are saying, you know, it's not my problem, it's. And I think there's, there's in some, to some degree that's like a fair thing to say. It's not business's fundamental responsibility.
Chris Fredericks [00:13:38]:
But we're not choosing that. We're not saying it's not our problem because we're employee owned. So our people, everything that impacts them on some level, we care about. So we're not going to say it's not our problem. And so I'm excited that we're, we've actually said this is something publicly. We're announcing we're owning, we care about this and we are going to figure out how to have an impact here even if it takes us a while.
Emily Bopp [00:14:03]:
Well, thank you for believing in Kim and I and our crazy ideas and thank you to Ebers who are listening or already leaning in for sure. I know it's been sometimes a little bit ambiguous of what we're actually asking you to do. And that's partly because we are literally creating something from nothing and trying to do something that hasn't been done before. So we're building a boat and setting sail to a place we don't even know exists and in a kind of a boat that has never been built. So thank you to everyone who's had patience with us and continues to lean in even as we do this. We hope the outcome is that we have a healthcare experience for all of our employee owners that works really well for all of us. That is the best quality, the lowest cost and most accessible that it can be for all of our employee owners. So stay tuned and Stay with us.
Emily Bopp [00:14:52]:
And yeah, thanks for sharing. What encourages you about that? Thinking back over the last year, some challenges which we all love to see as opportunities as well. It's not just always a negative. There's usually a silver lining to any challenges that we're facing. But just there were some, there were some challenges this year for our operating companies that highlight I think, some of our strengths and some of our opportunities. Did you want to share on any of those?
Chris Fredericks [00:15:18]:
Yeah, and we won't go into too much specifics about any particular situation, but I think broadly speaking, all of our companies are succeeding and working their tails off to ensure their businesses are performing well. And on the whole our businesses are very much succeeding. There are some broader challenges that like certain companies are just facing in terms of being in industries that have been slow for a while. So you know, we may have planned on a certain amount of growth that just was tough to come by this year in a few cases.
Chris Fredericks [00:15:50]:
And that's understandable when that when the broader market is struggling, it's tough to kind of overcome that. But still the companies have made progress on key initiatives. So even if revenue wasn't necessarily hitting exactly where they wanted it to be, that just kind of created space and time to kind of focus on other areas. So operational improvements projects that you know, were big transformational type projects that have progress has been made in some companies that in the future I'm confident will be transformational for those companies. And so they've been great learning experiences, some technology oriented ones that where our companies are like leading the way and like trying to spearhead something that no one else in their industry is doing. So and those aren't always easy either. Those come with challenges and a lot of learning this year I would say within our businesses and one step backwards, maybe to take two big steps forward in the future. That's the kind of stuff we're seeing.
Chris Fredericks [00:16:45]:
And I think what it encourages me back to, the encouraging question is this fits our model really well. Like we are not saying you have to grow this percentage and you know, we're not trying to sell your company in a few years. You don't have to hit mark certain targets that we're then going to sell the business. We think truly long term because we never intend to sell our companies. So the choices our operating company leaders get to make is pretty unique. They get to really do what's best for their company. And sometimes that means trying some projects that don't have like an easy and certain success like in the near term, but we believe in the long term. So that's the kind of stuff our companies are facing.
Chris Fredericks [00:17:28]:
In addition to that, I would say the challenge of finding people. A lot of companies talk about it's really hard to find people to hire these days. It's just even, you know, with some of the slowness in some markets, it's, it's really hard to find people to hire. And I think for a lot of our businesses, if they could hire 5 to 10 really great fit kind of people, they would in a heartbeat. And it's, that's been a challenge. But I think employee ownership has helped them to retain people as well. That's proven out, I think over the last, you know, five years for us as we've gone down this path is our best people tend to not leave our companies. And that's a really great element of our model that continues to prove out, so.
Emily Bopp [00:18:07]:
So absolutely, if there, if there's a call to action there, it's get the word out. Empowered Ventures companies are an awesome place to work and we're hiring. Maybe someday we'll have something on our website that would be cool. You know, I'm glad that you took the conversation where you did just a minute ago that the kinds of internal growth, growing through challenges, experimenting, trying, you know, making decisions in a little bit of a softer market condition that set the business up for success in the long term, that, that fits our model so well. I was having the exact same thought, thinking what a testament really to the approach that we're taking where success is measured in decades. And you know, if we could take a snapshot in time today and then take a snapshot in time five years from now at the exact same stakeholders and companies that were involved and be able to trace the path of the decisions that were made today and the outcomes that were felt, you know, five years from now, that is such a different business mindset than nearly everything. Even many privately held companies that are still trying to demonstrate just quarter over quarter growth, improvement and progress. You know, you just look at nature like nothing operates that way really.
Emily Bopp [00:19:25]:
It ends up burning out pretty quickly and having a shorter life and a quicker death. If I could be a little bit crass and maybe I'm just on my own, so box here. But I love our approach that is taking along slow a growth that will still be here 100 years from now. You know, old growth forest is what we're growing. So thank you for, for calling that out. This has been fun to think back over the last year. Maybe just wrapping up, we could project forward a little bit. Like what's coming in fiscal year end 26, so launching April 1st.
Emily Bopp [00:19:57]:
What do you see? What do you see coming down the pike?
Chris Fredericks [00:19:59]:
I think more of the same. I mean it's, we're at a point where it's really hard to predict. You know, we could definitely buy another company in the next year. Maybe we don't, you know, it's not, there's no, no guarantee that we ever buy a company, another company in the, in a given year. But I think we continue to build our team probably we continue to build out our processes and our approach, our oper, our current businesses continue to grow and improve. And yeah, I think it's looking to be a really fun and exciting year. Every year we've, we've gone into it kind of like, well, let's see what happens this year. It should be another building and fun and a little bit of uncertainty because we've been in a startup phase at Empowered Ventures and that I think it's stable.
Chris Fredericks [00:20:43]:
It's definitely way more stable than it was when we launched five years ago. But it's still an adventure. Every year it's like, okay, let's see what happens this year. And I'm excited for it. It should be fun.
Emily Bopp [00:20:54]:
Yeah, here too. Well, thank you for just rehashing the last year and thank you for your leadership and yeah, let's find out. Let's discover together what's coming. It's going to be good.
Chris Fredericks [00:21:05]:
Thank you, Emily. Appreciate it.
Emily Bopp [00:21:07]:
Yep.
Chris Fredericks [00:21:09]:
I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Emily. Empowered Owners is a podcast by and for the employee owners of Empowered Ventures. Special thanks to Share Your Genius for producing. You can find show notes and transcripts on our website at Empowered Ventures. Full video episodes are on YouTube at empoweredventures. If you have a question for us about EV, our companies or employee ownership, contact us at hello@empowered.ventures. You can also text or leave a voicemail at 317-643-2383. Thanks for tuning in.