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O P I N I O N
A successful firm
As a 100 percent ESOP, 50-year-old Pennoni has the culture, history, and staying power to improve the lives of its employees and the community it serves.
E mployee stock ownership plans, although not unique, are increasingly popular, and they have been known to save jobs, prevent companies from moving out of communities, and improve retirement security for employees. A federally qualified employee benefit program, the ESOP gives employees a means of accumulating significant equity holdings that will allow holders to save additional money for retirement, and as the participating company increases in value, the stock in the ESOP, including the employee’s share, increases in value.
Mark Celoni
At Pennoni, our ESOP was established in 1994 to allow ownership of the company to be transferred from Chuck Pennoni, the founder, to the employees who helped build the firm to what it is today. An ESOP is an employee-owner program that provides employees with an ownership interest in the company, empowering employee- owners to more directly benefit from their efforts, further ensuring the steadfast commitment and passion found in all corners of our service offerings. As Pennoni’s Philidelphia office director, let me explain what the ESOP means to me. I was born and raised in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia and have lived, completed my education, and worked in the city my entire life. I began my engineering career in
the mid-1980s as a Drexel co-op working first for the city and then for Pennoni. I have worked full time at Pennoni since 1988. My father was a war veteran and also lived in the city his entire life. He worked as a civil engineer for the Streets and Water Departments for 30 years. As a grandson of Italian immigrants to this great city, education and improving one’s self and community have always been important in our family structure. These principles live on at Pennoni. The three founding goals of Pennoni are “excellent professional reputation, profit, and growth.” These
See MARK CELONI, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER May 6, 2019, ISSUE 1295
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