• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

South Mountain Company

Martha’s Vineyard’s integrated design/build company

  • What we do
    • Process & Practice
    • Architecture & Engineering
    • Building
    • Interior Design
    • Solar & Energy Technology
  • Who we are
    • Our Team
    • The Company
    • Martha’s Vineyard
    • Beyond our Shores
    • Our History
    • Our Model
    • Careers
    • Internships
  • Portfolio
    • Residential
    • Non-Residential
    • Solar & Energy Technology
    • Affordable Housing
  • Media
    • Newsletter
    • Press Archive
    • Blog Archive
  • Contact
  • Search

The Company We Keep

Dear Reader,
This blog is now an archive. John Abrams (Founder of South Mountain, author of this blog, and a book of the same name) retired on December 31, 2022. All posts published up until this date are preserved below.

For updates on John's next chapter, visit abramsangell.com.

For updates on South Mountain's second act, subscribe to our newsletter using the form below.

Mondragon

Good Year for Worker Co-ops

January 14, 2013 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

On the last day of 2012 our 25th year as a worker cooperative (and 37th in business) ended.  It was an extraordinary year – rich, full, profitable, demanding, restorative, and uplifting.

It was a year of many “first-evers”.  On November 1st we welcomed three new owners at SMCo – the most ever at one time.  When DonE Turnell, Marc Rosenbaum, and Aaron Beck became owners, it meant that 21 of our 30 full-time employees are now full owners.   DonE worked here for 20 years before taking the buy-in plunge, our longest journey-to-ownership ever.  And it goes back further – I can remember him as a 14 year old skate punk back in the early eighties. He hasn’t changed much.  After his first SMCo Board meeting, he said, “It was kind of like a road association meeting but with less stupid people.”  Less stupid people?  Hey DonE, what are you trying to say??

Read More about Good Year for Worker Co-ops

Filed Under: Economic Crisis, Employee Ownership, South Mountain Company, Workplace Democracy Tagged With: Donald Rumsfield, Energysmiths, Equal Exchange, Evergreen Cooperatives, Green Futures, Marjorie Kelly, Melissa Hoover, Mondragon, National Cooperative Business Association, Owning Our Future, Richard Wolff, Rodney North, U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, U.S. Steelworkers

Co-ops in the Rise

December 7, 2009 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

I’m still excited about the budding alliance between the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Mondragon Cooperatives – and the general awakening consciousness about worker co-operatives and co-operative business in general that I wrote about last month.

And there’s more.

Read More about Co-ops in the Rise

Filed Under: Climate Change, Collaboration, Economic Crisis, Employee Ownership, Environment, South Mountain Company, Workplace Democracy Tagged With: Bernie Sanders, Climate change, Copenhagen, Equal Exchange, Gamesa, Green Jobs Coalition, Mondragon, South Mountain Company, United Steelworkers, Vermont Employee Ownership Center, Worker Cooperatives, Workplace Democracy

An Historic Alliance

November 10, 2009 by John Abrams 7 Comments

My friend David Smathers of the TeamWorks Cooperative Network in California writes:

“The Mondragon cooperatives and the United Steelworkers have announced an historic partnership through which they will buy or start manufacturing businesses in the U.S. and Canada that will combine Mondragon’s democratic structure of ownership and governance with collective bargaining.

It will take many years to implement.  But particularly in the face of the economic crisis that has exposed Wall Street’s failure to provide responsible stewardship of the economy, this is a very heartening development.  Together, these two institutions have the resources, technical expertise, and vision to demonstrate to the public that it is possible to structure and run large corporations in entirely different ways than what we have become accustomed to.”

Read More about An Historic Alliance

Filed Under: Economic Crisis, Employee Ownership, Workplace Democracy Tagged With: Alvarado Street Bakery, Capitalism: A Love Story, Employee ownership, Isthmus Engineering, Mondragon, South Mountain Company, TeamWorks, U.S. Steelworkers, Worker Cooperatives, Workplace Democracy

sidebar

Footer

UPS/Fedex

15 Red Arrow Road
West Tisbury, MA 02575

USPS

Post Office Box 1260
West Tisbury, MA 02575

Call/Email

508.693.4850

info@southmountain.com

Subscribe

Follow Us

  • Instagram
  • Houzz
  • Pinterest