We are thrilled to announce our second annual Best Evergreen Companies list and the second Evergreen Company of the Year!

First, we are honored to share the 2024 Best Evergreen Companies list. Each of these 25 companies became eligible by either completing the rigorous process of becoming Certified Evergreen® or hosting a Tugboat Institute® Exemplar Visit. Together, they stand as examples of high achievement across all the Evergreen 7Ps® principles. These outstanding companies span a wide variety of industries, geographies, ages, and ownership structures, yet they are united by a commitment to building enduring businesses characterized by determination, patience, and an unwavering desire to improve. We celebrate these companies, and all Evergreen® companies, for serving as the backbone of their communities and for contributing to a better world for all of us.

The winners are listed alphabetically, not in rank order, as we aim to celebrate each of these remarkable companies equally.

BEST EVERGREEN COMPANIES® LIST – 2024

128 Plumbing, Heating, Cooling and Electric
Awesome
BSI Constructors
Cathedral Holdings
ECRS
Edward Jones
Enterprise Mobility
Great Lakes Dental Technologies
High Plains Bank
In Time Tec
John Burns Research & Consulting
Johnson, Kendall & Johnson
Loadstar Product Handling Services
Meijer
O.C. Tanner Company
Radio Flyer
SAS Institute
Savage Services
SRC Holdings Corporation
Supportworks, Inc.
Tech Systems, Inc.
Telligen
Test Double
The Motz Corporation
Torch Technologies

Whether you are a job seeker looking for a career that will bring you fulfillment and Purpose, a founder looking for inspiration as you build your company, or a consumer or supplier looking to build a relationship with a stable partner you can trust, this list is a wonderful place to start. We encourage you to learn more about each of these exceptional companies, as some may be in your community, employ someone you know, or significantly impact the areas where you live. Keep your eye out for them and for other Evergreen companies; you’ll start to notice them everywhere and they will inspire and impress you!

And with that, we are thrilled to announce the company that rose to the top in our assessment that we have named the 2024 Evergreen Company of the Year:

EVERGREEN COMPANY OF THE YEAR® – 2024

Stotz Equipment

Led by Tugboat Institute member Tom Rosztoczy, Stotz Equipment is a fourth-generation, family-owned John Deere dealership that was established as Arizona Machinery in 1947 by Fred Elder and two partners. Although the name has since changed, the family’s leadership has remained constant. The business started with stores in Phoenix, Flagstaff, Coolidge, and Mesa, and initially, they carried both John Deere and Caterpillar equipment. Over time, they sold off the caterpillar portion of the business and focused exclusively on John Deere, eventually placing the company under the leadership of Tom’s father, Ferenc Rosztoczy. They embarked on a period of growth that saw expansion into real estate investments and the construction of Stotz Dairy in 1980. Under Ferenc’s leadership, the company changed its name to Stotz Equipment. Today, they operate out of 24 locations in eight western states. The company still holds true to the founding values of the Elder and Rosztoczy families: Quality, Integrity, Loyalty, Caring, and Community.

Stotz Equipment has been a Certified Evergreen company since 2021 and in their recent re-certification, they achieved the highest score on our assessment we have seen to date. As an exemplary Evergreen company, they are excellent across all of the Evergreen 7Ps principles. First and foremost, they stand out for their strength of Purpose. At Stotz, strategy is built around Purpose in all areas of operations, which ensures that it lives in the daily behaviors, conversations, and decisions of the entire team. As is typical of the power of the Evergreen 7Ps, Perseverance, Paced Growth, and Profit weave together to form a combined foundation of strength; Stotz has been extremely disciplined about growing from its own fuel over the years, and as a result has grown slowly at times, but always protecting its independence and Private status, all while focusing on Profit as the key to that growth. They stand out for their People First practices for many reasons, beginning with their culture of transparency and trust, and making every member of the team a part of conversations around long-term planning, goals, and results. And finally, they excel in Pragmatic Innovation primarily by routinely partnering with their customers as they seek and consider new ideas, to ensure that they are in close alignment with their practical needs and preferences.

Stotz Equipment represents the best of what it means to be an Evergreen company. They are an outstanding example and confirmation of what is possible when a company anchors its operations, decisions, and strategy in Purpose, and patiently lets their success build and compound over time. We are honored to award them the second annual Evergreen Company of the Year designation.

MORE ABOUT THE BEST EVERGREEN COMPANIES LIST AND EVERGREEN COMPANY OF THE YEAR AWARD

The Best Evergreen Companies list and the Evergreen Company of the Year award give us, at Tugboat Institute, an opportunity to celebrate and elevate extraordinary Evergreen companies and our Evergreen movement, in a language that society understands. We chose not to rank-order our Best Evergreen Companies list to avoid unnecessary competition between the exceptional companies that earned a spot on the list, allowing us to celebrate all equally. Companies become eligible for inclusion on this list by either becoming Certified Evergreen or by hosting two-and-a-half-day Tugboat Institute Exemplar Visit. Both of these paths require a deep, introspective dive into practices across all of the Evergreen 7Ps principles and provide tangible measures of Evergreen maturity across each of the principles and into overall excellence. The Evergreen Company of the Year award is given to one company that has distinguished itself over long periods of time, thus earning the extra recognition of this pinnacle award that can be won only once.

In the years and decades to come, our vision is for this recognition and award program to gain increasing awareness and scope, moving from a single list to several that celebrate and recognize even more Evergreen companies across various sizes, industries, demographics, and geographic regions. We believe that lifting up one Evergreen company lifts up all Evergreen companies, and we are pleased to have created this new program to do just that.

Together, these recognitions highlight the long-term strength and promise of Evergreen companies—businesses built to last for generations.