What Weldon’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan means to our team

Benefits and advantages of ESOPs

An employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, is an employee benefit plan that provides employees with ownership interest in the company. ESOPs are often formed by privately held companies to facilitate succession planning.

In the United States, there are approximately 6,500 ESOPs. Weldon Solutions is one of them, having made the transition more than two decades ago.

Through the ESOP structure, Weldon has continued to innovate and deliver high-quality CNC grinders that our customers have come to expect for nearly 50 years. Employee ownership also spurred new investments in cutting-edge technologies, including integrated automation solutions using robotics, to expand our offerings and grow the business for future employee-owners.

Those investments have paid significant dividends. Weldon’s automation business is flourishing and we are currently in the process of expanding our York County facility by 21,000 square feet to meet growing industrial robotic demands.

As we celebrate more than 20 years of employee ownership, we spoke with our team of 40 employee owners on what the ESOP means to them.

According to the Weldon employee owners, there are a variety of advantages to being in an ESOP, including:

• Unlike other companies, in an ESOP employee owners know the ones who are making decisions personally. As a result, employees often feel more involved in the company decisions, growth, and long-term success.
• An ESOP provides additional retirement income for employee owners. ESOP employees do not contribute their own funds toward the retirement plan. Instead, contributions come from the employer and employees accumulate the savings on a vesting schedule.
• Not only does an ESOP benefit the employees, it also helps the company.

Steady sales growth over the past two decades has increased the value of employee shares at Weldon and led to ongoing team expansion, with a specific focus on developing software and technology to provide innovative solutions for a variety of industrial clients. Our facility expansion will fuel new opportunities to provide our customers with customized automation and CNC grinders to help them achieve their long-term goals.