Blue Ridge ESOP Associates was proud to be represented again at the Mid-Year Fellows Workshop in Honor of Louis O. Kelso in January. This workshop was organized by Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing of the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations. The program is named after Louis Kelso who was a political economist, corporate and financial lawyer, author, and merchant banker. He is widely credited as the inventor and pioneer of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), enabling workers without savings to own stock in their employer company. The purpose of the annual workshop is to study broad-based forms of capital ownership and capital income such as employee stock ownership, equity compensation, profit sharing, gain sharing, and worker cooperatives in the corporation. The workshop also explores approaches to broadened citizen capital ownership, “second income”, and dividend funds for citizens in the society in the United States. The workshop provides an opportunity for scholars to present research in progress, receive mutual mentoring and feedback, work on joint research projects and publications, and meet foundation officials and publishers interested in this scholarship. The workshop convenes members of the research Fellowship Program of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing from around the globe.
