employee-owned
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The Investors Who Stay for the Whole Story
For more than three decades, Baird Capital has backed founder-led B2B technology and services companies from an early venture check to a late-stage buyout - one global team, one employee-owned firm, and a preference for the sectors most people scroll past.
The Quiet Holding Company Behind America's Walls, Ceilings and Firewalls
A private, people-first investment firm in suburban Kansas City has spent two decades assembling a coast-to-coast family of specialty construction companies - and betting that patient ownership beats the quick flip.
The Business-Forms Company That Became an Operating System for the Back Office
GBS started with business forms at a kitchen table. Fifty-five years later, its employee-owners sell the connective tissue between labels, servers, medical claims, marketing campaigns and the documents companies cannot afford to lose.
The firm that invented the private-equity fund-of-funds is still here 50 years later
Half a century ago it started as a bank's growth-equity desk. Today Adams Street runs about $73 billion in private markets - and every dollar of it is owned by the people who work there.
Delve Underground
Delve Underground is an employee-owned heavy civil and tunnel engineering firm that designs, builds, and rehabilitates the underground infrastructure behind transit systems, water and wastewater networks, and energy projects. Founded in 1954 as Jacobs Associates and rebranded from McMillen Jacobs Associates in late 2022, the firm brings roughly 350 specialists across 21-25 offices in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to some of the most technically demanding tunnels, shafts, and deep foundations in North America and Australasia.
Hustle
Hustle is a San Francisco-based text and mobile messaging platform built for one-to-one conversations at scale. Founded in 2014, it lets organizations reach supporters, students, members and voters through peer-to-peer texting, broadcast SMS, a voice dialer and in-message video - with humans, not autodialers, pressing send. Widely used by political campaigns, nonprofits, higher-education fundraising teams and labor unions, Hustle has powered more than a billion messages and, since April 2026, is independent and employee-owned.
PTS
PTS is a global, independent, employee-owned technology consultancy that designs the digital nervous system of buildings - connecting people, technology and space across workplaces, data centres, campuses and smart infrastructure. Founded in 1983 and headquartered in London, PTS advises on everything from audio-visual and networks to cyber and physical security, helping organisations transform their real estate through technology while improving user experience, wellbeing and sustainability.
California Drywall Co.
California Drywall Co. is one of the largest wall-and-ceiling specialty contractors in the United States, building interiors and exteriors across Northern California since 1946. From its San Jose base it delivers drywall, lath and plaster, metal framing, cold-formed steel engineering, fireproofing, acoustical ceilings, rainscreens and prefabricated wall panels for landmark projects including Apple Park, Levi's Stadium, SFO Terminal 2 and major hospitals. In August 2023 it became a 100% employee-owned company through an ESOP, putting equity in the hands of its roughly 700 team members.
Hathaway Dinwiddie
Hathaway Dinwiddie is a 100% employee-owned general contractor headquartered in San Francisco that has spent more than a century building the landmarks California works, lives, and heals in - from the Salesforce Tower to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and more than 10 million square feet of life-science space on the Peninsula. Built on planning, adaptation, and proactive partnership, the firm pairs century-old craft with advanced BIM workflows, LEED-driven sustainability, and an industry-leading safety record.
R.S. Hughes Co., Inc.
R.S. Hughes Co., Inc. is a privately held, employee-owned industrial distributor founded in 1954. From its Sunnyvale, California headquarters it runs more than 40 stocking warehouses across the United States, Mexico, and Costa Rica, carrying over 350,000 products - adhesives, abrasives, tapes, safety gear, labels, electrical and shipping supplies - for aerospace, OEM, and MRO customers. Its Saunders division provides custom cutting and converting, and the company pairs deep local inventory with trained product specialists.
Walters & Wolf
Walters & Wolf is an employee-owned (ESOP) building-envelope contractor based in Fremont, California. Founded in 1977 by John Walters and Randy Wolf, the firm designs, engineers, fabricates, and installs curtain wall, architectural glass, metal panels, stone cladding, GFRC and architectural precast concrete, plus interior door/frame/hardware systems. With roughly 600 employees across seven locations in five western states, it is one of North America's largest building-envelope manufacturers and has clad landmark projects for Apple, Google, Adobe, Kaiser, and Sutter Health.
Bob McCollum
Bob McCollum is the long-serving CEO and driving force behind R.S. Hughes Co., Inc., an employee-owned industrial distributor headquartered in Sunnyvale, California that has grown into a $527 million enterprise spanning North America. A University of Michigan alumnus and former college quarterback, McCollum spent decades building RS Hughes into one of North America's top 50 industrial distributors, known for its culture of integrity and genuine care for employees. He has been recognized for significant philanthropic contributions to the University of Michigan athletics program, endowing the quarterbacks coaching position with a $2 million gift in 2022.
Chris Wolf
Chris Wolf is the Chief Executive Officer of Walters & Wolf, one of the leading glass and glazing contractors in North America. Based in Fremont, California, he leads a 650-person employee-owned company that designs, engineers, fabricates, and installs architectural glazing, curtain wall systems, and door openings for clients including Google, Apple, Adobe, and Kaiser. Wolf rose through the company over 15 years as Vice President before taking the helm as CEO around 2022. Under his and prior leadership, Walters & Wolf has become widely recognized for its deep commitment to lean manufacturing and the Toyota Production System, maintaining a library of over 6,000 improvement videos and earning recognition from lean manufacturing expert Paul Akers as 'the best lean company I know.'
Greg Cosko
Greg Cosko is the Executive Chairman (and longtime President & CEO) of Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company, one of California's oldest builders. He led the Getty Center build, engineered the 1996 management buyout and merger that formed Hathaway Dinwiddie, and spent nearly three decades steering a 510-person, employee-oriented firm with roughly $300M in annual revenue.
Kevin O'Riordan
Kevin O'Riordan is President and CEO of Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company, the 117-year-old, employee-owned San Francisco general contractor behind a generation of California's most photographed buildings. He took the top job on April 1, 2025 after four decades in the trade and five years running the Northern California region. In the same window he was elected 2025 President of the Construction Employers' Association.
Paul Gutierrez
Paul Gutierrez is President and Chief Executive Officer of California Drywall Co., the San Jose-based specialty contractor that ranks among the largest wall-and-ceiling firms in the United States. In August 2023, he led the company's transition from third-generation family ownership to a 100% employee stock ownership plan, a structural rewrite of a 77-year-old business with roughly 700 employees.
Woodard & Curran
Woodard & Curran is a 100% employee-owned environmental engineering and consulting firm founded in 1979 and headquartered in Portland, Maine. With roughly 1,300 employees across 30+ offices in 14 states, the firm integrates engineering, science, design-build, and operations to solve complex water and environmental challenges for municipal, industrial, and government clients. From treating 11.7 billion gallons of drinking water annually to cleaning up Superfund contamination sites, Woodard & Curran positions itself as the firm that takes on the hard problems in water infrastructure and environmental health — not as a contractor but as a long-term partner.