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Employee
Ownership
“We’re just at the tip. We can do so much better.
I think we are going to be even more dominant and
more influential within the industry over the next 15-20
years. It’s just who we’ve become. If we can maintain
that, I’ll have to find a new word for amazing!”
~Larry Beltramo, President
Rosendin Electric is nearly 100 years old and
2017 marked the 25th anniversary of being
an employee-owned company. Rosendin has
always been an organization built around family;
an organization who cares for one another and
brings caring AND solutions to our customers.
This relationship based business model is a key
part of what has shaped and grown Rosendin
into the company it is today.
Ownership to Employees
In 1992, Rosendin Electric had been a family
owned business for over 70 years. Ray and Lou
Rosendin, sons of founder Moses Rosendin,
4 The Feeder | Q4 2017
were in their late 50s, each owned about 50% of
the company, were getting closer to retirement
age, and wanted to have some liquidity for their
shares. They were interested in freeing up the
wealth of the company while also maintaining the
active growth that was taking place.
As part of a company analysis, the brothers
engaged Duff & Phelps, a third party advisor
in San Jose, California, to perform a valuation
of the company and determine if creating an
ESOP would be the best option for the family, the
employees, and the company.
Sheryl Cefali, Managing Director at Duff & Phelps,
valuated Rosendin Electric and in 1992, the company
had $70 million in revenues. It was decided to
transfer ownership of the company to the employees
by setting up an ESOP.
“Ray Rosendin used to take a bunch
of us to lunch for update meetings
and, on this particular occasion, Ray
invited a few more people. During
the course of conversation, he said
he was going to transfer ownership
of the company by setting up an
Tom Sorley
CEO ESOP.”
In 1995, Sorley became president of Rosendin
Electric. “I was very honored and a little bit nervous
about being named President,” said Sorley. “I was
taking over the company from someone whose name
was on the building. There was some apprehension,
yet at the same time overall excitement because
Larry [Beltramo], Jim [Hawk], and myself had often
talked about the direction we would like to take the
company and we knew that we had the backing of
a lot of other leaders from inside the organization
who felt the same. We thought we could take a great
company and make it better.”
Arizona
Growth and expansion of the company continued,
just as Ray and Lou Rosendin had hoped, and
the Arizona office opened its doors in 1995. The
office started in a 4,000 square foot, three-story
office building. In the early days, people worked
in the lunchroom and Rosendin was known as the
“California Company.”
“Tremendous challenge comes with
opening a new office in a new area.
We were presumptuous in thinking
that everybody would be calling us,
and that our clients that we knew
from Northern California and other
parts of the country would be saying Mike Greenawalt
we need you here, welcome! We Senior Vice
President
started from scratch with a great
brand and product, but we had to sell it and let
people understand who Rosendin really was at the
time.”
Being an ESOP enhanced Rosendin’s overall brand
in Arizona. Our people believed in our brand and
product, embraced an entrepreneurial spirit, and
were out selling Rosendin’s services with passion.
Tom, Jim, Oregon, and San Jose
In 1997, Tom Sorley became Rosendin’s CEO and
Jim Hawk was named Executive Vice President.
Growth remained strong and Rosendin opened an
office in Oregon. During this time, it became apparent
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