The Silver Tsunami - Aging Business Owners 

What Are the Options? 

The Massachusetts Economic Development Council presents "The Silver Tsunami - Aging Business Owners - What Are the Options?". The morning will begin with an overview of the "Silver Tsunami" phenomenon and its impact on Massachusetts, especially Gateway Cities.  Panel discussions will focus on the nuts and bolts of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP) and Co-Ops as succession strategies, and business owners will provide personal insight with case studies of both options.  A round table discussion will give attendees an opportunity to talk about strategies that can be used in their own communities. 

8:45am Networking & Registration 

Continental Breakfast will be available

9:15am Welcome

The Silver Tsunami - An Overview and its Impact on Massachusetts Communities, especially Gateway Cities

Employee Ownership Stock Plans (ESOP) - What They Are, How to Use for Succession Planning, Case Study

• Dave Hammer

David Hammer is the Executive Director of the ICA Group, the country’s oldest national organization dedicated to democratic employee ownership. Mr. Hammer is a leading practitioner of employee buyouts of small business and worker cooperatives. Mr. Hammer joined the ICA Group in 2008 and served as a Senior Business Consultant until assuming the position of Executive Director in June 2013. He has spent his career working for organizations dedicated to empowering workers and the communities in which they live. David’s areas of expertise include market research, business planning, governance, policy analysis, data analysis, and financial modeling.

• Christopher Mackin

  Christopher Mackin is the founder and President of Ownership Associates. He has worked professionally in the field of employee ownership for thirty six years. Chris is a frequent speaker in both the United States and Europe to groups interested in issues of corporate governance and organizational change and is also a regular contributor to newspapers and periodicals on the topic of employee ownership. He serves as a Special Adviser to American Working Capital, LLC, a financial advisory firm for broad based employee ownership. He also serves as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations where he teaches a course called Democratic Capitalism and as a member of the core faculty of the Harvard Trade Union Program, a mid-career training program for union officials based at the Harvard Law School.

Cooperatives and Small Business Succession Planning

• Micha Josephy

Micha coordinates fundraising and new program development for CFNE. Micha first joined the co-op movement as an Oberlin Student Cooperative Association member and later coordinated Boston Community Cooperative’s first housing co-op development. He entered the community development finance sector as a portfolio assistant with the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation. He holds a BA from Oberlin College and a Masters in Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University.

• Carolyn Edsell-Vetter

Carolyn Edsell-Vetter started with A Yard & A Half Landscaping in 2000, mowing lawns while finishing her M.Div. Her career path came full-circle when in 2013 she led the company's transition to a worker cooperative. She is interested in the challenges and opportunities of coop conversions, particularly for low-income and Latinx workers.

 

• Siobhan Mullin

Siobhan Mullin is the Finance Manager and one of 17 owners at South Mountain Company, an architecture and building company on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.  Moving from Ireland many years ago she firmly re-planted her roots on a slightly smaller island when she decided to become an owner in 2010.  Part of South Mountain’s management team, she is passionate about employee ownership and its role in the future of our economy and the next generation (the one she cares most deeply about given the three young sons she is raising). 

Strategies for Local Communities to Address the Silver Tsunami

12:00 noon Mayor's Welcome

Mayor Bill Carpenter, Mayor of Brockton

12:15pm Buffet Lunch with Keynote Speaker

Michael Goodman - Executive Director of the Public Policy Center and Associate Professor of Public Policy, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

A leading analyst of the Massachusetts economy, he has authored or co-authored over two dozen professional publications on a wide range of public policy issues including regional economc development and housing policy as well as demographic and other applied social science research topics.  He has supported this research by generating over $4 million in external grant and contract funding from a diverse array of public and private sources.

An economic sociologist, Professor Goodman is a three time past president of the New England Economic Partnership, a nonprofit organization made up of leading regional analysts that produces semi-annual economic forecasts of the economic ooutlook for each of the six New England States.  He currently serves as Co-Editor of MassBenchmarks, the journal of the Massachusetts economy published by the UMass Donahue Institute in cooperation with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

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