We recently interviewed Lumber Trader’s CEO, Danny Steiger. In this conversation, Steiger talks about the company’s path to employee ownership, the experience of the selling owners, and the importance of educating employees about how their employee ownership model works.

Lumber Traders is an employee-owned lumber and building supply company in Port Angeles, WA. The company was founded in 1906 and became employee-owned using an ESOP structure in 2004.

In their 20 years as an employee-owned company, Lumber Traders’ share price has grown 6x with an average annual growth of 16% per year.

Steiger states that the additional shares given to employee-owners just in the last year averaged $13,000, and employee-owners with longer lengths of employment had larger shares. He mentions that in some cases, the increase in share value exceeded their yearly compensation. 

Expansion is also on Lumber Trader’s radar. They recently added a new glass installation department and are exploring growing via acquisition in the future.