Tammy Miller, Former Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota, Shares Her Big Idea for Employee Ownership

In this clip, Tammy Miller, former lieutenant governor of North Dakota, speaks at the 2025 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum. 

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The 2025 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum took place on April 9-10, 2025, virtually and in Washington DC. The Forum is proudly co-hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program and the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University.

This year’s theme, “From Workers to Owners,” highlights how the experience of ownership changes the reality of work for workers. The forum highlights companies in a range of business sectors and explores how employee ownership fits their business strategy and approach to business leadership. We also discuss the particular role employee ownership can play in supporting business success, and we consider the role institutional investors can play in improving capital access for employee ownership conversions and expansions.

For more information about the Employee Ownership Ideas Forum, including our speakers, agenda, and additional resources, visit our website: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/employee-ownership-ideas-forum-2025/

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
So thank you all for joining us and thank you again to the Aspen
Institute and Rutgers for hosting us.
It's great to be part of this discussion, Big, big ideas
discussion. Some of you will hear see that
my remarks are a little bit repetitive of yesterday, but I
know there are many new people in the audience.
So I'm going to share a little bit of background, but first

(00:26):
imagine as an employee going to work every day for the company
you own. Knowing you have a stake in the
game. Knowing you are empowered with
trans, transparent information, clear levels of authority and
consistent education. Knowing you are responsible to

(00:50):
take care of customers, your fellow employee owners and your
community and knowing you will be rewarded for your good work
with wealth creation in your ESOP and cash bonuses.
This is the American Dream and this is what it's like to work
at Border States and thousands of other employee owned

(01:14):
companies. While I most recently served as
the 39th Lieutenant Governor of the great state of North Dakota,
I spent 29 years of my adult life working at an employee
owned company and the last 14 years as the CEO and Board Chair
of Border States. Border States is a four and a
half billion dollar company headquartered in North Dakota

(01:37):
with 130 branch locations in 29 states across the United States.
There are currently about 3500 employee owners.
Border States established its ESOP 40 years ago and became
100% employee owned and an S Corp in 2000.

(01:57):
I became the CEO in 2006 and at that time we were a $485 million
company. During my term as CEO, we grew
to 2 1/2 billion in annual salesand our stock value grew from
$161 a share to over $1800 a share.
We created tremendous a well amount of wealth for employee

(02:21):
owners and it was that employee ownership that powered that
growth and continues to power the growth and success of the
company. Fundamental to the ownership
culture at Border States is transparency, education,
empowerment and accountability. This culture produces

(02:41):
responsible behavior which drives company performance,
allows employee owners to amass tremendous amounts of wealth in
their ESOP, and it helps create a duty for those employee owners
to give back to the communities where they live and work.
Successful Esops provide employee owners the opportunity

(03:02):
to live the American Dream, to work for the company they own.
This is true for the 3500 employee owners and thousands of
retirees at border States and millions of others who work for
employee owned companies in the United States.
According to the ESOP Association, 10.8 million

(03:24):
workers work in an employee owned company.
That's 8% of the private sector jobs, only 8%.
How can we double the number of employees working for the
company they own in the next five years?

(03:44):
Who's waking up every morning thinking about that?
What an opportunity for employees.
How can we have a more focused strategy?
That strategy needs to start with increasing awareness,
creating incentives and providing more resources.
Where is the go to place the onestop shop for Aesop's?

(04:07):
It would be great if we could develop robust Office of
Employee ownerships in every single state and at the federal
level. I know there are a few states
who are doing this and doing it pretty well, but just a hat, not
even a handful. And the Employee Ownership
Initiative, it was established in 2023 at the federal level.

(04:29):
It's a new program of the US Department of Labor.
I had the opportunity of meetingHillary yesterday and look
forward to her work, but I don'tknow if you've looked at their
site. The resources are still very
limited with a few federal and state resources and university
resources listed. There is so much more that we

(04:49):
can do, a great start, but more that we can do.
I have done a number of ESOP transactions, several, and I
know that each one is very unique, very complicated and
very expensive. How can we make this process
easier, simplified, less expensive?

(05:14):
How can we create a turnkey solution A1 stop shop for
Aesop's? You're probably thinking it's a
little bit crazy because they are so unique, but I don't think
it is. The transaction to do an ESOP,
either for a new owner or even to merge with another ESOP, is
very complicated. It takes accountants, attorneys,

(05:35):
valuation experts, administrators, and if you do it
right, a communication strategy to go along with it.
It's really hard for people who are focusing on their business
every day to put together that team.
How can we create a turnkey one stop shop?
You think it's impossible, but we did it at border states.
We had so many large utilities who turned over their whole

(05:58):
supply chain to border states. We had contractors that turned
over big projects, lighting, relighting, a big office tower.
With the material, the equipment, the labor, the
financing, we provided turnkey solutions.
It was so much easier for those business owners to say, yes, we
can do the same thing for Esop's.

(06:20):
And as we're doing that, how do we create more awareness?
Many of us are on advisory boards at our local
universities. How many of our local
universities are building employee ownership into their
curriculums? I challenge each of you to go
back to your hometowns, go to your local universities and talk
to them about including employeeownership in their curriculums.

(06:42):
And lastly, when you're talking with them about curriculum, talk
to them about internships. How many of our universities are
providing internships specifically to employee owned
companies? Probably not any at border
states. Every year we hired dozens of
interns. None of them knew about employee

(07:02):
ownership before they came to work for us, but after they
experienced our culture, they were sold.
So those are some of my ideas. I thought I could have 5 big
ideas. Those were just three, but I
hope those will get you thinkingabout some things to do.
Let's let's increase our resources at the federal and
state level. Let's look at those turnkey
opportunities and solutions to expand employee ownership.

(07:25):
Let's talk to our universities and let's talk about internships
at employee owned companies specifically.
With that, we can double the number of employees working at
employee owned companies in the next five years.
And let's all work to give everyAmerican worker the ability to
live the American dream, to workfor the company they own, and to

(07:48):
share in the wealth that they'vehelped to create.
Thank you.