How Salas O’Brien used Carta to evolve its employee ownership strategy

Salas O’Brien, an Irvine, California-based engineering and technical services firm, has partnered with Carta since 2020 to support ongoing growth of its employee ownership strategies.

The firm, founded in 1975 with over 3,800 team members today, joined Carta when it switched from an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) to direct employee ownership. Carta was used to facilitate some of the administration of the change and now serves as the company’s source of truth, empowering Salas O’Brien team members to view and manage shares in real time.

A new ownership structure

As part of its move from an ESOP to direct employee ownership in 2020, Salas O’Brien underwent recapitalization and needed a platform that could issue share certificates as part of a larger equity management system.

Carta also provides Salas O’Brien with direct access to its capitalization table and keeps it automatically updated. These features save the firm valuable time that it reallocates towards growth initiatives, especially compared to managing spreadsheets.

“Our team-member ownership program is a major part of our company’s success story today,” says Salas O’Brien Chief Financial Officer Grant Reindl. “This program is embedded in our culture, creates tremendous team member engagement, and has helped align incentives so we all benefit together.”

Employee ownership at Salas O’Brien has taken different forms over the years, but the concept has always been fundamental to the organization. Over time, it has rolled out ownership opportunities for all employees, giving everyone an opportunity for a stake in the company’s success.

“Eighteen years ago, we were generating approximately $5 million in revenue. We have consistently grown over history and today generate more than $700 million in revenue and have a bigger impact in our communities than ever. With this growth, we have been able to provide tremendous rewards for our team members through our distributed ownership program,” says Reindl.

“Carta has helped us as the program volume and participation have increased. It tracks all equity activity in a central place where we can say, ‘This is our source of truth.’ It allows us to communicate with our shareholders in a transparent way, such that they really understand the value of the program they’re participating in.”

Managing a complex investment

Reindl appreciated Carta’s centralization when Salas O’Brien took a minority investment in early 2024 from private equity firm Blackstone.

Carta’s simple usability helped the CFO streamline the inherent complexity of coordinating across leaders at Salas O’Brien and Blackstone, both companies’ law firms, and Salas O’Brien employee-owners.

“We used Carta’s platform to educate employee-owners on what different details of their equity meant and what actions they could take,” says Reindl. “Many of our staff are engineers, and they have an expectation that when something is designed correctly, it operates correctly, so from that perspective, Carta has been very positive.”

Carta creates workflow efficiencies with Salas O’Brien’s service providers, too. Reindl counted on Carta to reduce communication efforts and ensure accurate information for law firms.

“It’s easy for our law firms in the sense that they can go into Carta and pull information, even though it’s our team that manages the platform. They can access the information they need, just like any of our board members or shareholders who have profiles can access what they need.”