I Sold My Company to My Employees While They Were Sleeping

On March 1, 2024, our 30th anniversary, I called a team dinner meeting.

I stood in front of 50 members of my team who had helped me build this company and I told them I had sold Ocaquatics.

The room went silent. You could feel the fear. After everything we'd built together, I could see it in their eyes: "Here we go. Everything's about to change."

Then I told them the rest.

I sold it to them while they were sleeping. They went to bed as employees on Feb 29 and woke up as co-owners on March 1, 2024.

The reaction was something I'll carry with me forever. Shock. Disbelief. Joy. Tears. Hugging.  One of our custodians, who's been with us for 15 years, just stood there shaking his head with the biggest smile I've ever seen.

People ask me why I didn't just sell to private equity. The offers were good. After 30 years of grinding, I could have taken the money and walked away.

But I kept thinking about the people in that room. The ones who show up early. The ones who stay late. The ones who treat other people's children like their own every single day.

Those are the people who built this company. And those are the people who deserve to own it.

Of our co-owners at the time of sale, 78% of them are women. 94% identify as Hispanic or Black. Almost 70% were born in another country. This isn't just employee ownership. It's wealth creation for people who have historically been shut out of ownership.

That announcement day is still the proudest moment of my career. And probably always will be.