Excellence Exchange: Get Your Employees Thinking Like Owners

Learn two different approaches to employee ownership at Cargas and Rhoads Energy, and how related programs are benefiting employees and owners from multiple generations.

DATE: October 11, 2022

TIME: 8 - 9:30 a.m.

LOCATION: Riverdale Manor

COST: $40 Members

$55 Non Members

What is the Excellence Exchange?

The Lancaster Chamber’s Excellence Exchange is a professional development and networking opportunity for leaders -- a place for local and regional business professionals to hear noteworthy business practices and participate in small group discussions, facilitating conversation among attendees on how to implement the lessons learned from the speaker(s) within their workplaces.

Here's What to Expect!

Learn how two different approaches to employee ownership and related programs are benefiting employees and owners from multiple generations. Chip Cargas, Founder and retired CEO of Cargas, will explain how Cargas has used direct employee ownership and related programs as a talent magnet, success generator, and succession plan. He will delve into the thinking behind the design and details of their programs. Chip will explain how they have transitioned leadership and ownership to the second generation of employee-owners over a 24 year period. Mike DeBerdine, President and CEO of Rhoads Energy Corporation, will focus on retaining Rhoads’ 105 year legacy while rewarding the Rhoads Team with stock ownership. With an ESOP, being an ERISA benefit, there are several guidelines to follow that can enhance the employee stock ownership values based on growth and profitability while at the same time providing an efficient and favorable tax transaction for the seller and company.

Meet the Speakers:

Chip Cargas

Chip Cargas is the Founder and retired CEO of Cargas, an employee-owned software company with over 180 employees. He founded the company in 1988 with the purpose of creating a caring environment where people would love to work. Cargas began direct employee ownership in 1998. Their inclusive culture makes a decisive impact on recruiting and engaging talented employees and being named 16 times to the Best Places to Work in PA and 11 times as one of the Top Fifty Fastest Growing Companies in Central PA. Chip is the 2019 recipient of the Exemplar Award from the Lancaster Chamber and was named the Central Penn Business Journal’s 2015 Entrepreneur of the Year and the Lancaster Chamber’s 2006 Small Business Person of the Year.

Mike DeBerdine

Michael DeBerdine, III, is President and CEO of Rhoads Energy Corporation, the Lancaster-based parent to a family of companies that serve customers in South-Central Pennsylvania.

The company has been in continuous operation as a family-owned, locally based provider of energy services since it was founded in 1917. DeBerdine started with the company in 1989 and became president of the company in 2000, succeeding his father, who had led the company for several decades.

In October of 2021, Rhoads became one of 300 ESOP’s in Pennsylvania and one of two energy providers in the state operating as an ESOP.

Over the past decade, Rhoads has grown significantly and now serves over twenty-five thousand customers in Lancaster, Chester, Berks, Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware and Lebanon Counties. Rhoads’ core energy product lines are heating oil, propane and natural gas. Rhoads also operates a full-service HVAC department operating under the Cool Crew brand focusing on light commercial and residential service and installation upgrades.

DeBerdine remains active as a volunteer in our community. Presently he is a 22-year member of the Rotary Club of Lancaster South, serves on the fundraising committee for Scoutreach, serves as Immediate Past President of Milagro House and is Stewardship Chair of Millersville Community Church. DeBerdine serves on the Board of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Association as Propane Committee Chair and as the Chair of the Robert V. Boltz Scholarship committee.

A lifelong resident of the area, Mike graduated from Solanco High School and Franklin & Marshall College in 1987. He still resides in Lancaster County with his wife, Deb, of 30 years and three children Nate 25, Brooke 23 and Emma 21.

Thank you to our Sponsors!

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