Architecture firm Dekker to allow employees to share ownership

Dekker’s 200+ employees will now own a portion of the Albuquerque-based architecture firm after the company formed an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP.

That process involved Dekker's 25 principals selling the company to an ESOP trust, which owns all the stock in the company for employees. The company announced the transition to employees during a recent town hall meeting.

The trustee takes over the fiduciary responsibility but the firm is still managed internally. Making the company an ESOP will essentially provide all employees with an additional retirement plan along with a 401k, said Benjamin Gardner, the CEO and a principal at Dekker.

Employees don't have to purchase their stock shares. Dekker revenue from the prior year will become a contribution to the ESOP trust, and those shares will be allocated to employees based on the person's salary.

"This is another way to have our employees share in the success of the company," Gardner said.

Kendal Giles, Dekker's president and a principal, said Dekker principals sold the company to the ESOP trust for a fair market value, which the company didn't disclose. The company will be revalued each year.

Dekker previously had 25 principals, and now stock shares will be distributed between all the firm's roughly 200 employees.

"When we gave up our ownership, we locked in a price that we're all getting on our notes over the next 15 years," Giles said. "We're all dependent on the success of the company going forward."

The transition to an ESOP was done to recruit and retain employees, Giles said.

"It's a retention tool because the longer you're here, the more your stock is going to be worth," Giles said. "It's also a recruitment tool because it's pretty unusual in the (architecture and engineering) industry to be an ESOP. Only about 1% of all companies are employee-owned."

It's also aimed at improving morale.

"Instead of somebody coming to work every day and feeling like all the profits are going to somebody else, the goal is that they feel empowered that the better they do, the harder they work, they get rewarded in terms of the stock value increasing," he said.

Giles said the 25 existing principals will be paid back how much they owned in the company over the next 15 years. There was some sacrifice from those individuals because going forward they will own a smaller share of the company's revenue.

The revenue will go into an account to be paid out when the employee leaves the company if they are vested and have been with the firm for more than five years.

"I started (at Dekker) 24 years ago as an intern, and I had this incredible opportunity to become an owner ... and ownership really gave me purpose in what I did," Gardner said. "I thought, 'Why couldn't everybody have that same opportunity?'"

Dekker began as Art Dekker Architects in 1959 by Art Dekker, Dale Dekker's father. Dale Dekker is a founding principal and brand ambassador for the company. He has extensive experience in architecture and planning. He focuses on growing his firm, as well as the Albuquerque and New Mexico economy.

"We all do better when we do better," Gardner said. "That's what we want in our firm and within our communities."

As seen in Albuquerque Journal and written by Ryan Boetel.