Sep 8, 2026 · 4 min · 6 segments
Empowered Owners is back. To open Season 5 on Labor Day, we handed the entire episode over to the people who do the work — no host, no questions, just the incredible employee owners from all five EV…
My dad was a mailman.
My mom worked as a health aide at an elementary school and grew up just admiring the heck out of my parents and all the lessons they taught me about hard work and about how to be a team player but you know one thing that we didn't really talk much about is like finances we're out of the era of pensions like those rarely exist anymore but when you're in employee ownership and you're in an esop you have those shares that you're accumulating throughout the years and you really do have that pot at the end of the rainbow
I know that every hour that I put in benefits 50 other people and then some, right? I know that my work here meant something and to me that is irreplaceable.
Everywhere I've worked before, it's like, you just do your job and people won't even look at you.
Here, we
all have a voice as employee owners.
It wasn't just Luke or Jack standing up in front, you know, giving a spiel on this is what's going on.
It was the whole group of guys out in the shop asking questions, the right questions, because they were concerned about how we're doing.
We never had to dictate overtime.
Everybody stepped up where they needed to.
And then... adding employees to help keep up with the demand.
The existing First Star employees, very willing to train, very willing to help out because they know at the end of the day, that's going to help them too.
This is real.
This is not anything made up.
I mean, we are actually employee owned.
We're doing something different than most companies are doing.
My dad was a mailman.
My mom worked as a health aide at an elementary school and grew up just admiring the heck out of my parents and all the lessons they taught me about hard work and about how to be a team player but you know one thing that we didn't really talk much about is like finances we're out of the era of pensions like those rarely exist anymore but when you're in employee ownership and you're in an esop you have those shares that you're accumulating throughout the years and you really do have that pot at the end of the rainbow
I know that every hour that I put in benefits 50 other people and then some, right? I know that my work here meant something and to me that is irreplaceable.
Everywhere I've worked before, it's like, you just do your job and people won't even look at you.
Here, we
all have a voice as employee owners.
It wasn't just Luke or Jack standing up in front, you know, giving a spiel on this is what's going on.
It was the whole group of guys out in the shop asking questions, the right questions, because they were concerned about how we're doing.
We never had to dictate overtime.
Everybody stepped up where they needed to.
And then... adding employees to help keep up with the demand.
The existing First Star employees, very willing to train, very willing to help out because they know at the end of the day, that's going to help them too.
This is real.
This is not anything made up.
I mean, we are actually employee owned.
We're doing something different than most companies are doing.
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