KENT, Ohio – The Davey Tree Expert Company is the ninth largest employee-owned company in the U.S., according to a report from the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO).
The NCEO 2019 Employee Ownership 100 list shows Davey has grown considerably, moving from the 12th largest company in 2018 to its current ranking. Companies are ranked on the list according to the number of the employees; Davey now employs nearly 10,500 people across North America.
The NCEO’s 2019 Employee Ownership 100 list includes the nation’s largest companies that are majority owned by an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) or other broad-based employee ownership plan.
Davey cracked the top 10 of the Employee Ownership 100 while celebrating 40 years of employee ownership in 2019.
“The longevity of employee ownership at Davey says there’s a belief in the ownership structure,” said Davey President and CEO Pat Covey. “Employee ownership has allowed us to create a culture that has withstood a lot of economic and business challenges over time. We’ve created a culture through the people we hire and promote, and I like to think that’s because employee ownership fosters hard-working, savvy businesspeople.”
Davey has been employee-owned since 1979 when employees successfully bought the company from the family of its founder, John Davey.
To be ranked on the list, companies must be at least 50 percent owned by an ESOP or other qualified plan or by one or more other types of plans in which at least 50 percent of the full-time employees are eligible to participate, according to the NCEO. Collectively, the top 100 employee-owned companies on the 2019 list employ more than 610,000 people.
