The Value in Creating an ESOP for your Manufacturing Employees with Ashleigh Walters

<p><strong>Connect with Ashleigh Walters:</strong></p><p>LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleigh-walters-makethingsbetter/</p><p>Website: https://www.onexinc.com/</p><p><strong>Lisa Ryan</strong>: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the manufacturers' network podcast. I'm excited to introduce you today to Ashley Walters. Ashleigh is President of Onex, an employee-owned business operating for over 54 years in Erie, Pennsylvania. Onex designs services and manufacturers high-temperature industrial furnaces. When Ashleigh assumed the general manager role in 2013, the company has lost sight of its mission and family-centric core values. Today Onex's mission is to make things better: empowered employees, happy clients, thriving communities.</p><p>Ashleigh holds a BS in chemical engineering from Auburn University. She's the chairman of the board of directions for Northwest industrial resource Center, a manufacturing extensive partnership, and President and director of Aspire casualty, a reinsurance company. Ashleigh is the author of "Leading with Grit and Grace: a journey of organizational culture change. Ashleigh, welcome to the show.</p><p><strong>Ashleigh Walters</strong>: Thanks so much for having me, Lisa.</p><p><strong>Lisa Ryan</strong>: Please share with us a little bit about your background and what led you to Onex, to begin with, in 2013.</p><p><strong>Ashleigh Walters</strong>: Sure, I have; as you noted, my bs in chemical engineering from Auburn University. I met my husband there back in 1998. He started Onex in the southern division in 2002 when we graduated from college; I joined Onex in 2003 as a technical salesperson.</p><p>Fast forward to 2013. I was a stay-at-home mom with two little boys, and my father-in-law called to let me know that the current leader had left the organization and that he needed me to lead and take a look at the financials.</p><p><strong>Lisa Ryan</strong>: Okay, and then, and so what happened, I know that there was that they had kind of lost sight of their vision by that time s