From its Chevy dealership roots in 1966 to this year’s launch of its online car-buying platform, Van Horn Automotive Group knows a thing or two about driving bold change.
Second-generation CEO Teresa Van Horn had been serving as co-CEO of the auto group alongside her brother, Chuck, when he announced his retirement earlier this year. Today Teresa leads the Plymouth-headquartered automotive group that includes multiple car dealerships throughout Wisconsin and Iowa, a finance company, a rental vehicle division, and a wholesale financial products company and is featured in this month’s cover story by Kate Bruns.
Another point of distinction: Van Horn is the state’s only employee-owned auto group. At its roots, an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) is a benefit program that gives employees stock in the company. Consolidating Van Horn’s dealerships into a unified auto group and forming an ESOP were efforts made about 10 years ago, and today it has grown into a 77% employee majority ownership plan.
See the November 2022 cover story to read how Van Horn’s newest chief executive is driving the company into a new era of majority employee ownership, expansion and innovation.
The entire Insight team has become better acquainted with the idea of employee ownership since last month, when publisher Brian Rasmussen made the announcement that he sold the business to Woodward Communications — an ESOP company headquartered in Dubuque, Iowa.
Woodward began as the first newspaper in Iowa and has continued to diversify throughout Iowa and Wisconsin by investing in community media such as newspapers, radio and niche publications — one of its most recent acquisitions being Insight Publications. (The company also owns Woodward Radio Group in Appleton.)
Since its inception in 1992, Woodward’s ESOP has paid former employee owners more than $63 million. Not too shabby.
What excites me the most, however, is the culture an ESOP creates. As employee owners, we share in the risks and rewards of ownership. It creates transparency and a sense of buy-in that’s hard to achieve any other way.
As Insight Publications embarks on this new chapter, we invite you to continue on the ride with us. While most changes will be undetectable to our readers, our commitment to connecting minds and creating insights in the New North business community will be more evident than ever. We remain dedicated to helping regional businesses succeed by sharing their stories and fostering relationships.
Because some things are best just the way they are.
