May 17, 2006 (Washington, DC) – Dean Landry, a dispatcher with Acadian Ambulance Service in Lafayette, Louisiana, has been named the 2006 Employee Owner of the Year by The ESOP Association. The ESOP Association is the national trade association for companies with employee stock ownership plans (ESOP) and the leading voice in America for employee ownership.
Mr. Landry has single handedly changed the way Acadian Ambulance Service communicates the ESOP to its employee owners. He took over the company’s ESOP Committee over three years ago and through a combination of humor, vision, and organizational skills, brought new life to the company’s communications process and increased interest and participation in the employee ownership program. He has overcome geographical hurdles and job diversity to involve people in the ESOP and created a vision statement for the company’s ESOP Committee. Mr. Landry brings the concept of the ESOP to the employee owners every week with a column in the company’s newsletter which highlights how being safe on the job can affect everyone and how the ESOP is part of the overall goal for Acadian Ambulance Service. Last fall when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Acadian Ambulance Service was one of the very few rescue services actively assisting individuals and doing what needed to be done to bring people to safety. Over 200 Acadian Ambulance Service employees lost their homes due to hurricane damage. The company created a Disaster Relief Board to assist these employees. Mr. Landry was the only field employee named to the Board.
“Dean Landry truly embodies the power of transformation that one employee owner can bring to an ESOP company,” said J. Michael Keeling, President of The ESOP Association. “I believe that Dean’s leadership played a major role in making a culture at Acadian Ambulance Service that recognizes its employees’ courage, compassion, and character in the incomprehensible difficult days after Katrina.”
Founded in 1978, The ESOP Association represents over 1,400 ESOP companies and 750,000 employee owners who believe that employee ownership will improve American competitiveness, increase productivity through greater employee participation and strengthen our free enterprise economy.