Succession Planning

Exploring Employee Ownership & Succession Strategies for Small Businesses
Join the North Carolina Employee Ownership Center (NCEOC) to explore succession planning and dive into how selling to your employees via an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), worker cooperative, or Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) can be utilized to increase employee recruitment & retention, protect jobs, increase community wealth, and create a more vibrant, inclusive economy!

• Business owners have put a lot of hard work into their businesses, and many of them are looking to retire or move on to something new.
• Only a small percentage of businesses are passed down from generation to generation, and 80% of businesses never even sell.
• Selling to one’s employees ensures that the owner gets fair market value for their business and their employees keep their jobs.

Presenters: Luke Hoffman, Mike Willard, and Steve Virgil

Luke is NCEOC's Regional Director, working to increase the number of employee-owned companies in North Carolina. Luke is passionate about creating a just, inclusive, and sustainable economy that benefits everyone. Luke is from Great Mills, Maryland but has family in Western North Carolina and graduated from Appalachian State University majoring in Sustainable Development with a focus in Community, Regional, and Global Development with a minor in Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies.

Mike earned his Bachelor of Business Degree and Masters of Business Administration Degree from The University of Toledo in 1984. Upon graduation, he began a field sales career with Pilkington, a global leader in float glass production. Mike held various field sales positions of increasing responsibility before moving into production at one of the world’s largest glass making facilities in North Carolina. In 1999, Mike joined Salem Distributing Company in Winston-Salem, NC as their National Sales Manager and was fortunate to be a part of the formation of the ESOP that started in 2000. Salem became 100% employee owned in 2005 with the former owner retiring and Mike became Salem’s Vice President of Sales. He became CEO and President in 2010 and continues to serve in that role.  

Steve is a clinical law professor at Wake Forest University School of Law and lawyer (licensed in North Carolina, Nebraska, and Ohio) with more than twenty years teaching experience and an active legal practice in clinical and public interest settings.