“The community, the economy, the environment - everything is interconnected. That’s the approach we bring to our business.”

- Blake Jones, co-founder, Namasté Solar

The story of Namasté Solar can be summed up in two words: workplace democracy. The driving force of Namasté Solar’s success is its dedicated community of individuals who are passionate about what they do and how they do it, and have flourished in the company’s democratic, high-involvement culture. Founded in Boulder, CO in 2005, Namasté Solar - a designer and installer of solar electric systems for residential, commercial, non-profit and government customers - is an employee-owned cooperative where even the CEO is just another guy with a vote. Each of its 100 employee-owners strives to create strong, harmonious teams while promoting individual autonomy and responsibility. Namasté Solar promotes leadership at every level throughout the organization, from the way they make decisions to how they contribute to their communities. This means that an installer on the roof and their CEO share in both leadership and accountability. As co-owners, they believe in personal accountability, sharing in the risk, responsibilities, and rewards of business ownership. As they see it, co-ownership is a willingness to continuously hold a bigger picture vision amidst the everyday details of our individual job roles as part of our continuous improvement process.

“If everybody feels that sense of pride and responsibility, we can change the world and do great things.”

- Doug Woods, co-founder To understand the story of DPR Construction is to know the people behind the name who had a passion for better serving customers and building complex projects with a strong sense of purpose and value. In July of 1990, three construction veterans - Doug Woods, Peter Nosler and Ron Davidowski - set out to do something different in an industry traditionally resistant to change. From the outset, the founders strived to create a customer-focused company modeled after Silicon Valley’s high-tech innovators, where dedicated employees worked long hours motivated by their sense of belonging and a financial stake in the company’s success. To do that, they felt strongly that an informal, egalitarian environment would encourage creativity and enthusiasm that would translate into more efficient planning and procedures as well as a happier, more motivated, and productive work force. As a result, DPR has no titles, no private offices, no hierarchy, and plenty of camaraderie. From a team of 11 professionals at launch, DPR has grown at breakneck speed. They now have 2,729 employees in 10 regional offices established in every major technology center in the U.S. DPR also reached the $1 billion mark in less than 10 years and continues to rank in the top 50 general contractors in the country over the last decade. DPR's form of shared capitalism is two fold: they have phantom stock for the non-union workers and profit sharing for the union employees. DPR has achieved this success because of its dedication to building great things with integrity, enjoyment, uniqueness, ever forward - and the right people have been, and always will be, the foundation of DPR. The company has also integrated the union into profit sharing and decision-making. As co-founder Peter Nosler explains, "There are many spectacular stories of individuals, who after coming to work here found out their true capabilities. Several people have gone from pounding nails on a jobsite to becoming integral members of the management team. This represents success, as one underlying concept from the very beginning was to build an entrepreneurial organization, where people can continuously grow."