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205: Executive Compensation for ESOPs



Bret Keisling is joined by M. John Burgess, Esq. of Shumaker, an Equity Compensation, Employee Benefits, and ESOP Attorney, and Curtis Schehr, Executive VP and general counsel at DCS Corp., who discuss the importance of executive compensation plans, questions to ask when designing the plan, pitfalls to avoid, and best practices for ESOP companies.


This episode was recorded at The NCEO's Annual EO Conference in Seattle, Washington in April 2022.




 

Episode 205 Show Notes


About M. John Burgess

M. John Burgess

Partner at Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, ESOPs, Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation

Board of Directors of the Florida Center for Employee Ownership


John is an attorney and CPA who helps business owners, executives, and other senior managers with all of their employee benefits. He also advises employee benefit plan committees, including 401(k) plan committees, on their fiduciary responsibilities and best practices. He’s worked with plans of all sizes, ranging from those sponsored by small, local companies with a few dozen participants to large, multi-national corporations with over 10,000 participants and billions in plan assets.


He is one of Florida’s leading experts on employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and helps companies establish and maintain these plans. He also advises ESOP trustees during the course of an ESOP transaction, both buying and selling company stock. He helped establish the Florida Center for Employee Ownership and is on its Board of Directors. John is a regular speaker at conferences sponsored by the National Center for Employee Ownership and the ESOP Association, covering topics ranging from the technical to the cultural aspects of ESOPs. He is also the co-host of the ESOP Experience, a podcast where employee owners are interviewed, to get their perspective on what their ESOP means to them and their company.

About Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick:


Founded in 1925, Shumaker is a premier provider of legal and legislative services with a team of more than 270 lawyers and advisors, 50 paralegals, and 500 employees in its ten offices located in Toledo and Columbus, Ohio; Tampa, Sarasota, Tallahassee, and Dade City, Florida; Charleston and Greenville, South Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina, and Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.


Shumaker provides quality legal counsel to their core constituency: individuals, small businesses, health care providers, nonprofit organizations, Fortune 500, and international corporations. Their mission is to work on their clients' timetable and budget, focus on results, and keep their clients ahead of the curve.


Shumaker recruits and retains top graduates from leading law schools and provides young lawyers with specialized training in the areas in which they practice. Many of Shumaker’s lawyers have advanced degrees in disciplines related to their practices and a number have clerked for federal and state trial and appellate court judges. Ninety-three of their lawyers are listed in the prestigious publication, Best Lawyers in America.

Shumaker is focused on being a positive and impactful difference maker for their clients and in the communities they serve. The firm is a strong supporter of nonprofit organizations in each of its locations and firmly believes in giving back to the communities it serves.


About Curtis Schehr

Executive Vice President


Curtis is a seasoned general counsel and corporate secretary with experience in publicly traded and privately held companies in the government contracting and national security sector wit


h significant experience advising executive management and the board of directors. He applies a business focused and solution-oriented approach in supporting an organization to achieve its objectives while minimizing risk. Substantial experience in M&A, employment law and ethics and compliance programs.


Specialties: Government contracts, mergers and acquisitions, employment law, internal investigations, corporate governance, export control, ethics and compliance, commercial real estate and securities laws.


About DCS Corp

DCSCorp logo

DCS Corp offers advanced technology and management solutions to Government agencies in the national security sector. They seek to develop successful working relationships with their customers to ensure that expectations are met and they get the job done right. The value that they place on ensuring customer satisfaction is based on a strong corporate culture of empowerment, innovation, responsiveness, and professional excellence. The transformative ideas and entrepreneurial spirit that characterize DCS’s more than 1,800+ employee-owners allow the company to ensure success of each client’s mission and actively contribute to the well-being of the nation.


DCS offers a unique mix of small company values and delivers solutions typically associated with larger companies. Their management team is engaged and involved in strategic plan development. Executive team leadership brings seasoned experience and proven results. Diverse perspectives from each manager is incorporated into their strategic efforts to provide leading technology solutions to their customers, empower their employees and win new business.


Carl H. Dubac, Sidney S. Cox, and David L. Shumaker, the three founders of DCS, made a dedicated commitment at its inception to technical excellence and employee empowerment. In 1977, these founders pledged to build a company that would attract smart, inventive people to address technical problems, and provide products and services that would positively impact the well-being of our nation.


DCS stands on core values of being an employee-oriented company, offering quality services with integrity and honor. DCS’ commitment to the highest levels of ethics, integrity and excellence is of central importance in everything they do.

 
Bret Keisling, Passionate Advocat for Employee Ownership

We'd love to hear from you! To contact us, find us on Facebook at EO Podcast Network and on Twitter @ESOPPodcast. To reach Bret, with one "T", email Bret@KEISOP.com, on LinkedIn at Bret Keisling, and most actively on Twitter at @EO_Bret. Again, that's one "T". This podcast has been produced by Bret Keisling for the EO Podcast Network, original music composed by Max Keisling, branding and marketing by BitsyPlus Design.


Standard Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are my own and don't represent those of my own firms or the organizations to which I belong. Nothing in the podcast should be construed as guidance or advice of any kind in any field and the fact that I mentioned an organizational website or an advocate or a company on a podcast does not reflect an endorsement, but if you've heard your name or your group's name mentioned on this podcast, I'd love to have you come on and talk about it yourself.





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