When we co-founded our Evergreen company, Torch Technologies, a government defense contracting business, we knew from day one that we wanted our employees to have an ownership interest in the company.

As a manager at a previous company that had been acquired and reorganized, we had experienced some of the negative outcomes of that scenario—namely not being able to follow through with incentives promised our team when new leadership assumed control. Living through that transition was tough. We didn’t want to treat people that way.