Keep It Durham-Owned - Sept. 14, 2026

Uh, it's a beautiful Monday morning in the Bull City. How we feeling today? Everybody feeling all right? >> All right, we can do better than that. We live in the greatest city in the world. Make some noise if you're happy to be here. >> Uh, my name is Joshua Gun. I am the director of the office of economic and workforce development with the city of Durham. Uh, I'm a proud Dermite and I'm proud to be in this space uh, which is hollowed ground here in the Bull City. Uh for those of you who are not familiar with the space that you are sitting in, this is the historic headquarters of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance, uh which at its height was the largest blackowned company in the world. Uh headquartered right here in Durham, North Carolina since 1898. In 1898, uh there were some interesting things going on in our country which I think our host might tell us about. But this particular space, Pride in 1898, was designed to pay homage uh to the history, but also build a future of entrepreneurship here in Durham. So, please join me in welcoming our host for this this morning's event, uh Carl Webb, co-founder of Provident 1898. Let's hear for Carl. >> Good morning. You know, going behind Joshua Gun with that energy this early in the morning is incredible. All of the great things that he just mentioned about Providence in 1898 is helpful. Uh we are on hollowed ground. We're in a place where entrepreneurs and business people not only built a business, but they built communities, they built universities, they built health centers. And it's no more fitting place for this announcement to happen. and looking at ways that we can keep Durham businesses in Durham that we can create opportunities for the next generation like the Joshua Guns to take these businesses and to scale. One of the things that we found out here at Provident 1898, we are placed in an ecosystem for creatives, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. But what we're also realizing is that not everyone is going to scale from a seed into a a thriving business. The way that we're going to really close the gap is through acquisition entrepreneurship. We've been fortunate in aligning ourselves with national partners that are helping us in that important work. Less than 5% of blackowned businesses even have employees. So to have the kind of catalytic impact that we need in our communities, we have to buy and acquire businesses that we can employ Durham people. And so that's the next generation of what we're going to do. This is a location that has everything that you need. Office space, meetings for events, conference rooms, all of that. But we also have access to capital. Resilient Ventures being one of our members here. The North Carolina Idea Fund that provides a significant amount of resources. And I tell you, you know, members of this organization have been here at Provident from the very beginning almost. It seems car risk even from the city was here in the very very early days. So we are here to provide services, opportunities, be it space, technical assistance, money, uh, and also training necessary to grow. And we're looking forward to partnering with Duke University and the work that we're doing because what we're realizing as a community between the city, county, and Duke is that we spend a tremendous amount of opportunities for businesses. So, we want to align Durham based businesses with those opportunities that the city and the county and Duke currently have. No new programs, no new money. Just be intentional about supporting these businesses. And if you do that, I just had a birthday and maybe somebody will take over my business. Thank you. Thank you, Carl. And thank you. Uh Peter Sevelich is also here as a co-founder of Pride 1898. Thank you'all for hosting us uh in this beautiful space. Uh we are here to talk about keep it Durham Owned uh which is our new campaign to support employee ownership. Uh but before we get into the details of how this works and what this means for businesses in Durham, we are honored to have our mayor, Mr. Leonardo Williams, here to address the crowd. Let's give a big Durham round of applause for Leo Williams. Good morning everybody. >> Morning. >> I uh first want to recognize my colleagues uh because uh I serve as mayor but I don't do this job alone. I have mayor prom here. Um she tried to sit in the back of the room. Uh Javier Caviierto I have council member wrist call wrist. I have council member Matt Copac here. uh these folks get it and and we are going to do everything we can and I just assure other colleagues to try and lead this city forward. Uh what you're going to hear today is something we uh we vastly support and um I I I don't want to sound doom and gloom, but if you're really paying attention, uh we're losing black owned businesses at an alarming rate right now. Um but what stands firm is we're still a majority locallyowned city. We got to connect those dots. Something's happening. We have our infrastructure where small businesses have thrived and it's built the character of this city. It's why so many people want to come here for their conferences. It's why so many people come to Durham. And I know I only have two minutes, but I'm going to brag for a second. >> Durham is the number two most people centered, automation ready, future ready city in America >> next to New York. Not Raleigh Durham, Durham. I am a regionalist. I believe in cooperation. Durham is also the number two city in America where young families can raise a child or raise their children. We're also the number two most educated populace in America next to in Arbor. We also have about 83% of our college graduates staying local. When you have all of we also have the like the the number one performing arts center, midsize performing arts center in the country. So when you have all of those things that are happening, it makes Durham a pretty cool place. But you come downtown and you're only going to find two chains in the restaurant world. Mela Mushroom and Mo Southwest Grill. Everything else, you walk in and you see owners working in their spaces. And that is what we want to continue to build. We recently went to Minneapolis and they were celebrating 15 Fortune 500 companies born right here in Durham. But David, I don't need a Fortune 500 company. I need you. I need our entrepreneurs that are building dreams to come true. And that's what Durham is doing. And that's what I want to continue to support. That's what I I want to continue to build. And if we can keep a Durham on, we can keep a dirty Durham. Let's just keep a Durham and let's continue to build what we have. But let's be intentional about it. You can choose to go to some chain or you can choose to go right here. But I will say these numbers are still accurate. When you shop local, 41 cents on the dollar stays local versus shopping at a national chain and 14 cents on the dollar stays local. And I'm not saying don't shop at chains. I'm just simply saying there needs to be a balance. So let's make sure that we're building it to be intentional. Let's make sure we're uh supporting our local owned businesses. But let's make sure that we create more risk takers, more opportunity makers. That's what Durm is all all about. It's home of Black Wall Street. Let's be about it. Thank you. One more time for our mayor, Leo Williams. Uh Leo's an entrepreneur. He knows exactly what he's talking about uh when it comes to taking risks, creating jobs, uh and supporting the economy here in Durham. We have uh a major opportunity in front of us and that is the keep it Durham Own campaign. Uh the city of Durham is proud to partner with two entities uh to launch this campaign and support businesses in our community. Uh one of those is the Democracy at Work Institute and we have some friends here from the West Coast uh who flew in on Saturday just to get extra time in Durham. I don't know if he went to Aggie Eagle or not but uh spent enough time to appreciate this great city. Uh the other is here locally that is the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center. So please join me in welcoming Ela Burbank and Zen Trin uh to talk to us about what all this means. Let's give them a round of applause, y'all. Hi, I'm Ela Burbank. I'm the executive director of the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center, which is a mouthful. So NCEOC is great and together with Luke Hoffman in the back, we make up um NCEOC. We are a nonprofit organization and our mission is to expand employee ownership in North Carolina. We do this through education, free education, and free one-on-one advising and counseling for those business owners who are trying to decide what path they should take. As Mayor Williams had said that the small and medium-sized businesses are the lifeblood of Durham, but if we look at the statistics, and you'll see the map there is that there's 82,000 businesses in North Carolina and more than 50% of those are aged 55 and older. So that means that in the next 5 to 10 years, more than half of the business owners in North Carolina will be wondering who's going to own my business next. Unfortunately, many of those don't have a succession plan. And we look at business owners overall, only about 30% of business owners have thought that far ahead to see what their succession plan is going to to be. It's a difficult topic. It's one that not most people want to think about. So, what has changed from the previous years? Uh in the past many times business owners would pass their businesses on to the children but more and more children are deciding to take their own path in life and so they're not taking over the business of from their parents. You could also sell to an outofstate uh business or to a PE firm, but as you and I all we all know, that could mean the loss of jobs um as they pull out HR and accounting, change the name of the businesses and such. You could also list with a broker. Um but statistics show now there are exceptions that on average if you list with a broker only 20% of the businesses sell. It's a low number. So employee ownership is a solution that is often overlooked. So we're here to talk about employee ownership. It is a way to sell your business to the people who know and honor your business the most, your employees. So the keep keep it dured initiative is a support network for business owners and adviserss. We're here to educate these business owners, the community, the adviserss about employee ownership and provide that free one-on-one counseling for those business owners. So, we're talking about employee ownership. What does that mean? So, there's three main forms of employee ownership. The first one is called an employee stock ownership plan or an ESOP. And in this plan, you create a trust that becomes the owner of those shares that can hold them forever, right? the ownership stays potentially forever. These shares are allocated to the employees annually. So we have some employee owned businesses, ESOPs here. They will get a statement every year saying you have been allocated a certain number of shares. Here's the price per share. And that is held for the employee until they leave or retire. At that point, the business buys back those shares and they have a lovely retirement that they can enjoy their life. Bobbit who lives in Kerry has looked at their they've been a 40-year ESOP. They're looking to have at least one person to have $1 million in the retirement account when they are retiring. Pretty significant numbers. My own personal experience was I worked for a manufacturing company for 21 years and we became a partial ESOP and I saw also the culture that changes within that change, right? as the new employee owners realize that everything that they do within that company ends up having a direct and positive benefit to their own selves. So I saw a lot more engagement, employee engagement, employee retention and innovation. One of our machine tool workers came up with a brilliant idea that saved time and money and assisted our our customers. So many people advisors especially know about ESOPS but that tends to be for slightly larger companies because it is a retirement vehicle and there's a lot more regulation around people's retirement accounts. So we have two other options here. We have an employee ownership trust, also known as an EOT, and that is similar to the ESOP in that you create a trust that becomes the owner of these shares that could be held in perpetuity, but rather than being a retirement vehicle, it is current year profit sharing. So, at the end of the year, the employees receive or it could be quarterly or or monthly, but the employees receive a check in profit sharing. better for smaller companies because you don't have the oversight of retirement. The other one is a worker cooperative. So worker cooperative is not your electric cooperative. Most people know about electric cooperatives or maybe your consumer cooperative that you go and you have the right to um at your grocery cooperative for example. This is a worker cooperative that is owned by its employees. There's a a direct joint ownership with the employees of this company. It's not always about an exit. So employee ownership can also be about employee recruiting and retention. Construction has had a lot of conversions to employee ownership because it is hard to keep those construction workers. And so many of them have converted even though they're not ready to exit, but they're using as recruiting and retention tool. So it's a workforce development tool also. And it's also a way to re reward engage all of your employees. Now, we already have some great employee owned businesses here in Durham. So, Shopbot Tools, the founder, Ted Hall, he started it as Shopbot was a side business, but as he the business grew, he wanted to continue to thrive and he wanted to the employees and the customers to be rewarded. So, he converted over to an employee ownership trust. We have Cactus Group which is a worker cooperative. Uh Colin and Tobias are still working in the business. Uh but they wanted to look ahead and have a succession planning place even though they're still in the business. So they became a worker cooperative. And then Rustin Paving. Uh you've probably seen the blue trucks around. If you pay attention, you will not unsee that now. The signature blue trucks. Um started in 1943 by Mike Rustin. his son Larry joined the business and now grandson Mark Rustin has joined the business. They converted last year to 100% employee ownership ESOP. So, a couple real quick myths about employee ownership. We're going to do employee ownership myth busting. Number one is that employees have to come up with the money themselves that out of pocket. That's not true. When these transactions happen, the trust is formed and they buy those shares from the founder. It is done through financing through loans and oftentimes the selling founder will also take back a note. So these are all happening without employees having to pony up the money themselves yet they get the benefit of this business. Myth number one. Myth number two that owners give up something when they convert to employee ownership. When these transactions happen, you get an outside valuation, an independent valuation, and the share price is usually based on that market price. You're not giving up anything by be converting over to your employees. And myth number three, if you have employee ownership, every employee has a decision in every decision that has to be made. That's not true. So employee ownership, you still have a traditional ownership structure where you might have CEO, president, you know, the normal structure. However, you now have better engagement and you do have, if you're doing it right, you're doing getting better uh involvement by your employees. So raise your hand if you would if you are an existing employee owner. We have quite a few in the room right now. >> That's great. Thank you. So, employee ownership warps and you'll be hearing from two of them um soon after. >> Good morning, everyone. >> Good morning. I'm from Portland, Oregon, and I just wasn't built for the the heat that's here. Uh >> but uh yeah, but boy, what a lovely city, though. This is uh my third time visiting. Every time I come here, I just I really do understand just what makes Durham so special. It's a beautiful place, a lot to be a proud of, and really excited to be here with you all today. So, I'm Zen Trenholm. I'm the senior director of employee ownership cities and policy at the Democracy at Work Institute. Uh we are uh a national organization that makes employee ownership more accessible to communities that are locked out of good jobs and business ownership. Before I get started on what this is all about, I want you all to join me on a little bit of a of a walk down memory lane. I know each of us right now can remember a business we wish was still around. Maybe it was your favorite restaurant. Maybe it was your family's business. For me, it was a cafe that served for decades as our community's living room. You know, it's where people met up to study new language, uh, you know, catch up on on their friends and just decompress from a hard day. And when that business closed, we lost something unique that was more than just the coffee they were serving. That kind of space, right, doesn't just happen overnight. When a business like that closes, it leaves a void. Employee ownership helps solve this. It roots businesses in the community, ensuring that they have many more years ahead of them. It gives workers the most powerful tool, wealth building tool, ownership in a thriving business. And when businesses and their employees thrive, so do our communities. I have the privilege of working with city and community partners all around the country that use employee ownership as a tool to meet their needs. From New York City to the San Francisco Bay area, we work with local governments to address a challenge that is becoming more urgent, right? The silver tsunami crisis. It's what we're here to talk about today. They tell us about an owner of a story business that closed for good because she couldn't find a buyer. Too often the owner was not aware that they could transfer ownership of their company to their employees because they never saw an example close to home. They never met another business owner who took the same route. This is why we're excited to partner with the city and with the North Carolina employee ownership center to make it easier for owners to learn about employee ownership as one option uh to continue their company's legacy. Through this initiative, the city of Durham joins our national uh employee ownership cities program alongside the cities of Raleigh and Cincinnati. It's a national network of local governments that are working to deploy employee ownership to build resilient local economies, quality jobs, and wealth for workers. And together, we are making it easier for people to learn about and benefit from employee ownership. This will mean that more owners can retire safely with a knowledge that their legacy will continue through their dedicated employees. And that means more workers build wealth that's anchored in their communities, ensuring that as the city prospers, that prosperity is shared by the people driving that success. So again, we are extremely proud to partner with the city and North Carolina employee ownership center for the long-term success of Durham's treasured small businesses. You know, those entities that really make the city prosper and thrive. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Zen. Thank you, Ela. Uh thank you to all of our partners. Um Zen also informed me that he has made a discovery of Durham hiphop on his time here. So, um, I'm glad you got to see the other side of me and enjoyed it. Appreciate you, uh, supporting Durham in many different ways. Um, we want to hear from some employee owned business businesses in our community. Now, um, you know, this is an opportunity to preserve those brands that we love. I want to invite you also while you're in Provident 1898 today to take in some of the art, take in some of the the installations or exhibits here. Uh, and I encourage you to ask Carl or Peter questions about them because those are stories about some Durham businesses and Durham people who made a really significant impact. So, invite you to take advantage of being in this space. Um, speaking of uh taking advantage of being in the space, we have an incredible business here who's going to talk to us about their employee ownership journey. Please join me in welcoming Jim Pullen, managing partner of the Link Group. LET'S HEAR FOR JIM. APPRECIATE IT. SO, I'm Jim Poland and I'm one of the managing partners and CFO of the Link Group. We're a market research agency based in Durham. We've been around since 1994. And about two years ago, the owner founders of the company decided it was time to retire. Part of that silver tsunami that you mentioned, although I don't think they'd appreciate me saying that, they could have sold the company to private equity. they could have sold the company to another larger company or an industry. In both cases, we probably wouldn't be in Durham anymore. We probably wouldn't have the HR team, the accounting team, the IT team that we have. They chose wisely, in my opinion, to go down the employee ownership route. So, through an ESOP transaction that Neil described, they sold the company to the owners, sorry, to the employees, we became employee owners. um their vision was to preserve the culture that they had worked so hard to create over those 32 years and to entrust the future ownership to us. So as a result, every employee owner in our company now has a stake in the outcome. We all gain wealth by the the growth of the company. It is a retirement benefit. You've heard all kinds of news about the US retirement crisis. You've heard news about wealth disparity in our country. At the Link Group, we're trying to address both of those concerns for our employee owners. Uh, so far it's working really, really well. This shows up in how we engage with each other. It shows up in how we treat our clients and service our clients. It shows up in how we give back to our communities. We've committed to our our time, talent, financial resources to give back to Durham. We're also in Atlanta who are helping out there as well. Um, but I I will tell you that becoming an ESOP takes a lot of work. My colleague Lynn could attest to that. It is absolutely worth it. It's not the easiest path. In my opinion, it's the best path and we look forward to welcoming some more employee owned companies as part of the the Durham keep it own keep it Durham owned initiative. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Jim. Uh certainly a success story that we want to continue to amplify and brag about in our community. So, thank you for what you're doing. Uh we have another great business owner story to tell. Please join me in welcoming Susie Sneeringer, store manager at Electric Violin. Let's hear it for Susie. >> Are you going to play? Are you playing violin today, too? >> All right. Next time. >> Susie, do you want me to be your man? >> Yeah. No. >> Thank you so much. >> One more. That was good. >> Okay. My name is Susie Smeneinger and I'm the store manager at Electric Violin Shop in South Durham. Here are a few of the instruments we sell. This kind of explains it a little better than I can. Um, we've got one maker in the High Point, Dan EMTT. We've got an instrument from Brazil that has LED lights. Um, and then there's also this amazing six string made by a manufacturer in Charlotte. >> It's called the Pumba. So, we're a retailer. We love what we do. Um, and while these instruments may look different, they actually sound and feel a lot like an acoustic violin. And we operate like a fullervice violin shop. So, they're going to play well, and that's very important to us. Um, and one of the reasons we insist is that those of you who do a lot of public speaking might know a little bit about feedback. Feedback is a big problem when you're playing an acoustic instrument. So, this opens a lot of doors for the violinist or the chist because they can come in and plug in and actually be heard along with the rest of the band. So, that means you can have hip-hop violin, you can have rock violin. We actually get a lot of folks coming through that are playing at DPAC and they're looking for an equipment upgrade. Um, so we're able to show them kind of what the world offers as far as electric violins. Let's see. >> You can take it off. Might >> have to go a little higher. Sorry about that. >> I can. >> So, Bla1 Blae Keeler was our former owner and he had a shop in Carro called Music Explorium a few decades ago. It was a wonderful little shop. You could go in there and play instruments from all over the world. Um, and what he noticed was that he kept selling he would get an electric violin in and he kept selling them. So, we had to restock electric violins. So, evidently there is a need out there. Um, so about 15 years later, we're selling to 95 countries all over the world, but we've also got a really good local base. We've got schools and professional musicians in the area buying from us. So, Bla1 was about ready to retire. He wanted to play music. Uh, plays in Fulltown Strutters and a couple of other local bands. and he really wanted to keep the shop open and running in the area. All of us wanted to keep doing what we're doing. So we we looked into it. We realized we couldn't get individual financing to buy the business. Um so what we ended up doing while Blaze was at a party and spoke with Anlair Brotten and found out that one option would be um cooperative financing for our business. So, we had no idea there was such a thing as a cooperative lender. We didn't know what that was, but we looked into it and we instantly knew that this was going to be the right solution for our business. We all get to stay where we are. We're all doing what we love and we're not going to get bought out by someone that's going to really change who we are. Um, so that was very exciting. It definitely took some work. We got a lot of help along the way from uh Duke Law Community Enterprise Clinic uh Carolina Common Enterprise. We ended up working with a cooperative lender, Shared Capital, and there were some interesting things about that. We had actually members from the lender come and visit our shop, make sure that the health of the business was good, kind of find out more about what we do. Um, so we spent about six months drafting bylaws and articles of organization and really just deciding how we were going to run our business as a cooperative. Um, figuring out things like consensus and would we have yearly dividends and what would those be? And the great thing about it is that anyone who wants to join our shop and work for us has the option to become a member. So they don't have to, but if they want to, they can have a share in those yearly dividends. Um, another thing that I love about it, so this is 10 years in. You know, we're still a pretty small team, but we have a structure that tells us how we're going to make decisions as a group. So, you know, it's a democratic workplace, but we have to get together and figure out how we're going to decide on hires or what we're going to carry. Um, and that's very helpful for me. And a lot of us also play music. So we can have a flexible time situation for our employees if they need to leave at 4 because they got a show. So that's very attractive to our local employees who also play music. So it's been great. It gives each member a share in the company's success um by converting some of that profit to member dividends each year and it helps us all feel invested in the shop's future. So, we ship instruments everywhere, but we love being in Durham and being a part of our community. No violin show today, but soon we'll get one. Uh, thank you Susie for uh everything that you do. Um, we have a champion in our community for so many things uh, business and entrepreneurship related, but also for employee ownership who I'd like to bring to the stage. She's a key partner to the city. She's a key partner uh, to many of us in the room and a trusted messenger uh, for all things employee ownership. Please join me in welcoming Latasha Bessi, chief strategist at Infinity Bridges and a board member of the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center. LET'S HEAR FROM LATASHA. THANK YOU, JOSHUA, and to everyone that's here. So, we're here to really celebrate how we keep it Durham own. Earlier, Zen kind of asked you to take it down memory lane. So, for those that are in Durham and have been here for a while, I wanted to also just take you down memory lane. How many of you remember Dillard's barbecue? Today is BB Gas Station. How many of you remember Mutual Community Savings and Loan Bank? Today it is closed or merged with M&F. And we're going to go to M&F in a minute. How many of you really remember all of the businesses that was along what we have is our durm black wall street that now is no longer existing. And as we stand here today in the mutual tower that was the home of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, which was the largest, the oldest AfricanAmerican life insurance company globally, not just in the US. How many people remember when it was in operation or had a grandparent, a parent, a sibling, a auntie, uncle, someone that had a policy with North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company? Raise your hand. Now, there are others and the last one that just happened is our African-American bank, Mechanics and Farmers, or MNF, that just merged or consolidated with another bank. How many people have a history or know or have even had relationships with M&F? Raise your hand. So the reason why we say keep it derm owned is for all of those things. Now I can tell you there's plenty plenty more memories and as a foodie I'm going to even give you a little bit more memories of what exists today. How many people are familiar with Chicken Hut that currently is on Fairville? What about LSD Jones funeral services? What about Scarboro and Target Funeral Services? What about um uh oh, lost the place. Sorry. What about other restaurants that may be your favorite uh that are here and operated of all the places that you can go? This is why we want to keep it durm owned because when we don't, Durm loses its economic aspect and an asset within our community. So, who will own the businesses that already exist? The secession planning and employee ownership is extremely essential. And so that is why we want to really make sure that not only as an ecosystem of entrepreneurs but also as service providers that we really focus on how we do it. So, how do we keep it dermone? And sometimes you've got to just keep what Derm is already built on. Let's keep the jobs. Let's keep the wealth. Let's keep the legacy. And most importantly, let's keep all of those memories, those things that we probably would want to tell your grandchildren about, that place that you went, your favorite spot that you remember. So, as I conclude, I just want you to say keep it Durham owned, but also make sure that you visit them so that we can keep the economics going around our country and specifically in Durham today. Thank you. Thank you, Latasha. Thanks for everything that you do. Um, when we were thinking about a name for this campaign, I just wanted to lift up one thing. Um, Ela, Zen, uh, Chris Dicki on my team, Grace Gino on my team, uh, were kind of the working group for this. And, uh, I told them that Durham is not just a noun. Durham is an adjective. And so I suggested keep it Durham because if you're in Durham and you're from Durham or of Durham, you know what that means. You know what something is when it feels like Durham. Uh, and then Zen so uh, geniusly reminded me that we have to put own in so people know what the hell we're talking about, right? Um, but, uh, keep it Durham is what we want to do here. And when you keep Durham businesses in Durham, you preserve not only the economic benefit, but that cultural, that feel, that, uh, grit that makes Durham Durham, right? Um, and so, uh, that's what excites me most about this campaign. Uh please join me in welcoming back to the stage a champion for this work across the state and our key partner Ela Burbank of North Carolina Employee Ownership Center. All right. Yes, I'm back. Um so hopefully by now you've heard the importance of the initiative and the importance of keeping the business o owners local. So what is this initiative that we're talking about? you know where it's succession planning as I mentioned before is a really sensitive topic. So you want to make sure that those business owners have that trusted advisor someone that they can believe in that they know has the right answers there to talk to them about their future. So this initiative has a three parts to it really. Um it's about education. It's about those trusted partnerships with those trusted advisors and our free one-on-one advising for the businesses. So during this this initiative and beyond uh NCEC together with the city of Durham will be holding educational workshops about employee ownership for business owners and advisers to learn more about what employee ownership is. We'll have lunch and learns. We'll be joining meetings and spreading the word about employer ownership. Then we are going to partner with some of those organizations as they can host us to have some of these events and introduce you know have that network expand and introduce people to employee ownership through their own events and their own outreach. Making sure that the business owners that they advise get the support that they need. And then finally, we'll be reaching out to business owners and meeting with business owners again free um every time we meet with them. We are not 501c3 nonprofit. So um we will give independent advice to our business owners. So one-on-one guidance will meet with business owners to talk about your short-term goals. What are your long-term goals? What is the size of your company? What's the best fit for you? And even if it's not immediately employee ownership, we're taking this no wrongdoors approach. We can still put you in touch the right people. If you're not ready to convert, we'll have the right network, support network for those business owners. We have educational videos. We can put you in touch with these wonderful people who have already converted. So you can ask those questions. We've been through it. How does this work? It's an important part of seeing yourselves in other people's shoes to make sure that you you're feeling comfortable with it. We can also help with financial assistance and other sort of resources once you make that commitment that you're going to become employee owned. So fundamentally, keep it employeeowned is about celebrating those legacy businesses. It is connecting them to the right experts and it's making for the easier for the business owners to get the support that they need with a plan that keeps the jobs, the businesses and the services they provide anchored within this community. So ownership, employee ownership changes what we've talked about with uh PE firms and others that have taken over and changed the culture. Employee ownership changes that it keeps the values and the culture built by the founders. It provides a way for long-term ownership plans for the company and for the employees. It keeps the jobs local and the employees engaged. And then those profits, as we mentioned, those profits that previously might have gone outside are now awarded to the employees who spend it locally within their own community. It keeps our communities vibrant. So my call to action to everyone is if you're an advisor, please reach out to us. Let us come to your events. Help us meet those business owners who you've heard start talking about their succession planning options. If you're a business owner, please reach out to me and I'm love to speak to you. Here's a QR code. You can come to our website and reach out to me. would love to meet with you and help you on your goals to your future. >> Thank you. >> Thanks, Ela. Um and u thank you to all of our partners on this work. Uh I want to also lift up that our office office of economic and workforce development uh speaking of no wrong doors is a great door to enter into if you know a business that is interested in uh exploring employee ownership. We want to be a key resource for you here at the city as well. Uh, one of our key champions on the city council for this effort from the very beginning, uh, is council member Carl Wrist. Please join me in welcoming Carl Wrist to the stage. Wow. Good morning. Good to see everyone here. This feels like a lot of talk about memory lane and first full circle moments. This feels like a lot of that. So, I first want to thank Carl Webb, Pierce Sevelich for for hosting us here today. I did have an office space here, like a what would you call it? Flexible space when I first started my consulting work before I did this crazy thing about running for council. So, it's good to be back in your space here. I want to thank my colleagues, Mayor Williams, Mayor Pert Cavier, Council Copek, and also Council Baker, who was a big part of this could not be here, so have all been critical in this work. There's so many folks here that and I want to thank the business owners, Jim and Susie for being here, business owners. Um, and Joshua for your leadership here. This is really important work. And I also see a couple folks here in the audience and Claire, where's Latasha? Where'd you go? Latasha. So, if you all know me or some during the campaign, you know that for many, many years, I worked in the space of economic opportunity, creating ways to make economic development more broadly shared. And so, Ann Claire was my go-to for everything regarding employee owns. I'm so glad to have you here. I'm so glad that you've done this work. North Carolina Latasha Basgati is another like one of those people that I just always went to for local economic development, small business stuff and minority development. So, thank you so much for being here, folks. Um, this could not have come at a better time in the city of Durham. Um, as the mayor said, and you can you can go on the Discover Durham website, all the accolades we get in Durham. There's so many things people are saying about us. What did you say? We're this one of the smartest cities in America, one of the best places to start a small business. There's all kinds of accolades we're getting. At the same time, we all feel the stress here, right? We know that more than a quarter of our residents are low income, right? If you look at data from the North Carolina uh budget tax center, the top 5% of earners, wage earners in Durham earn 25 times more than folks in the bottom 20%. So, we've got a challenge of this economy splitting apart, right? And we've done a our council is focused on this issue of making sure we have more broadly shared prosperity. And I want to thank my colleagues because I do want to pull up our most recently revised strategic plan where and we've had we've had shared prosperity is a key goal of the city of Durham for a couple years before I got in council, but we just updated our our strategic plan and with help from council copac and mayor prom and mayor Williams, we have updated that language. And so our strategic plan now reads um we identify inclusive economic prosperity as one of our five highle goals. And within that goal, one of our top priorities is to expand wealth ownership via affordable home ownership, via workerowned businesses, and via saving strategies for youth. So we've named employee ownership as one of our top priorities as we promote inclusive economic development in Durham. So again, this could not have come at a better time. And you know, again, given my my interest in this topic and my background, like Zen, you sent an email to me probably like a few days after I got on council. I was like, I can't believe I got an email inviting Durham to be part of this network of of cities promoting employee ownership. And so, we had to wait a little bit till we got Joshua Gun on board. And so, Council Baker and I went to Joshua and said like, "Hey, this is a really important opportunity from Dawi and from uh from the Northtown Employee Ownership Center. Can we can we engage in this?" And so, I'm so thankful for Joshua for saying like, "Absolutely. This is part of what we want to build in Durham." And so as we as we under Joshua's great leadership continue to work on the shared prosperity notion, it's critical that we, you know, like most economic development departments have like a recruitment kind of piece and sort of visitor stuff, making sure we have more visitors coming, small business work. Not many cities of Durham size and certainly not many in the south are also focused on employee ownership. So we are as as with many things in Durham, we're punching above our weight here. I'm so proud that we're promoting this. This is not going to be the solution for every legacy business, but as one solution and part of building an economy where there's more owners, there's more capital, more wealth building, more stable jobs. This is a key part of what we want to do in the city of Durham. I'm seeing my one minute back there. So, I'm going to wrap up and just say thank you so much for being here. You've heard Elo's call to action. We want business owners to take advantage of the opportunities. We want folks who support businesses to support them and make sure they know that employee ownership, as you saw on the slides there, is one key way to build wealth, to sustain legacy businesses, and create great jobs in Durham. So, thank you for being here. Am I the last one or am I >> You wrap it. All right. Yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you, Council Member Rrist. um you've been a champion for this work for so long and appreciate you reminding us about council member Baker who's also uh been a champion for this effort along with all of your colleagues. Uh we're grateful to Mayor Pro Tim, council member Copac and our mayor uh for representing. I mean we got we think we have a quorum. Is this a public meeting now? Uh we we have a strong presence. I think that signals uh to the state and to the community that our elected officials care about our business community. So, we appreciate you all uh for being here. Look, uh I have no further remarks because you've heard from so many great people except to say I miss Diller's Barbecue as well, Latasha. Uh they still sell the sauce at Food Line at Harris Ter if you if it's not quite the same. Uh but I cook with it every Sunday. So, I appreciate that nostalgia. Uh but in all seriousness, that's a great example of the businesses we need to preserve, right? And the reason why this work is so critical so that uh we're not up here 20 years from now telling stories about businesses we miss. We're telling new generations about businesses that we've patronized for decades. And so thank you all for what you do. We invite you to continue to network and enjoy Pride in 1898. Thank you to our media partners for covering this. I'm grateful for uh some positive Durham news. So we thank y'all for coming here to celebrate some great news with us uh in the midst of these trying times. So thank you all for your support. Thank you to Zen from Dowi. Thank you to Provident. Thank you, Ela. Uh, and thank you to the partners in the city of Durham. Let's keep it Durham, y'all. Thank you. >> So, folks who want to hang around, we got some refreshments over in the uh lobby area.