Falcon Industries Gets ESOP AWARD

Falcon Industries has earned the 2002 Ohio Employee Ownership Leadership Award for "Getting Its ESOP Off to a Good Start". The Award was presented at the 16th annual Ohio Employee Ownership Conference on Friday, April 12 at the Akron/Fairlawn Hilton in Fairlawn, Ohio. The Ohio Employee Ownership Conference recognizes the successes of Ohio's employee-owned business community. This year's conference theme is "Employee Ownership: Building Better Communities."

On October 3, 2000 Falcon Industries established its Employee Stock Ownership Plan as a reward for the firm's employees, located in two identical plants in Medina, Ohio, and Cosmos, Minnesota, who helped develop and grow Falcon into a business with multi-million sales. "The ESOP supports our successful operations and growth," explains President Bob Taylor. "We used to be two plants that operated independently.  Now we are two plants working together with greater resources to meet our customers' needs."

The employee owners of Falcon are specialized metal fabricators of screw flighting and conveyer screws, both sectional and continuous, and completed, machined conveyor screws. All their products become part of larger assembly systems for moving materials in a broad range of applications from small metal chips in machine tools, to steel billets in high-temperature furnaces, and to moving earth in massive drilling and boring equipment. Falcon has long had a participative management style. Management meets with shop floor employees daily to review and discuss unusual orders and problems. Quarterly shop meetings are held to review company progress and present results of the quarterly incentive program, which is based on quality, timely delivery and productivity. Employee ownership is a logical next step.

Since becoming employee owned, the company has formed communication committees in each plant to educate the employees about the ESOP and organize an Annual ESOP Owner's Meeting for employee-owners and their spouses in both locations.

The new employee owners at Falcon Industries have a lot to be proud of because they have truly gotten their ESOP off to a good start. Company sales grew by 30% in the first year of the ESOP, they have earned very high quality ratings, and over 90% of products were shipped on or before the day originally promised at the time of sale. "The two best years in the company have been the last two years, which are the two years we have had the ESOP," added Taylor, "and, in an economy like this, not a lot of companies can say that."