CMU School of Drama


Friday, February 05, 2021

Nautilus Entertainment Design, Inc. Becomes An Employee-Owned Business

LiveDesignOnline: Nautilus Entertainment Design, Inc. (NED) announced today that after 30 years in business, the company founders Laura and Jim Tetlow, are selling their stock to the company ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan.) With this sale, the company will become 100% employee-owned. Jim Tetlow will continue on in a consultancy role as Principal Consultant and Lighting Designer for select shows and projects in an effort to provide NED’s clients with a multi-year seamless transition.

3 comments:

Andrew Morris said...

I am really very pleased to hear that Nautilus Entertainment Design Inc. is becoming an Employee-owned Business. It is really refreshing to see that the company founders have decided to sell their stock to the Employee stock ownership plan. I feel that this course of action really helps the overall vision and moral of the company by having the founders and employees share the losses and gains of the company, which helps with company spirit during these times. This decision is also very helpful for the company overall because if the employees own stock in the company they are working for, they will be more motivated for the overall success in the company because of they stakes they have in play. I did not know much about Nautilus entertainment design inc before reading this article and it was very insightful to learn about how this San Diego based company provided lighting design, theatre consulting, and A/V system design for projects worldwide, with specific expertise in cruise ships, themed entertainment, and live special events.

James Gallo said...

I love the idea of transitioning to employee owned and it is even more impressive to see this coming from the entertainment industry when companies are usually smaller in general. We should be seeing this on a more corporate level, however the rich continue to earn more than they ever have from their big corporations that they are CEOs of. To see a company go employee owned is really exciting and makes me appreciate how much Nautilus cares about their employees to the point that they want to give them stake and a voice in the operation of the organization as a whole. I think that this will probably make them much more effective at what they do in terms of their work in the entertainment industry and I bet the overall morale of the company will also go up because of this shift in leadership. This is a great model for other companies to follow.

Victor Gutierrez said...

This is wonderful news and every company should follow suit. The whole Gamestop/Robinhood stock market fiasco proves that the stock market is by design a playing field that only those that are already wealthy are welcomed to play on in order to increase their wealth. That’s such a glaring Bourgeois/Proletariat divide that I really hope it creates a shift in the way Americans view the economy and it ends this idea that the stock market is any indicator of how middle-class families are doing. Having an employee-owned business is a really good way for entrepreneurs and people that want to start their own companies to do so in a way that won’t amass them obscene amounts of wealth, incentivize workers to care about the success of the company, and ensure that everyone is earning a living wage. This ideal that only those who already have capital, whether it be landlords or business owners, deserve profit for simply owning something is ludicrous. They are profiting of the labor of others and bringing nothing to the table. Owning something is not a skillset and to circle back to the article, all companies should be employee-owned.