897 Miren Oca: The Power of Employee Ownership

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Miren Oca:

B Corp certification is a great opportunity for any company that wants to be better, wants to use  their business as an environmentally and socially responsible company to measure their impact. And it really has helped us realize tools and realize resources that we can do to get better and has helped our staff. We found that our team members, especially the young people that we’re hiring, they want to work for a company that’s making a difference. We have really great retention that makes our customers happier and our families happier. And then all of that eventually leads to a healthier bottom line. So, it really is a ‘win-win-win’. I think that B Corp certification has helped us be a better company using our business as a force for good, but it also has helped us be a better company in terms of profitable metrics.

Melinda Wittstock:

What does it take to build a Triple Bottom Line Business, that is a business that is good for people, the planet, and profits? Miren Oca is a pioneering innovator in social and environmental sustainability and employee ownership, uniquely building her swimming school business over the past 30 years to be a force for good for team members, customers, the environment and her own bottom line. Today we talk about everything from B Corp certification to Employee Ownership Trusts and how entrepreneurs can turn mission into actionable results.

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m all about paying it forward as a five-time serial entrepreneur, so I created this podcast to catalyze an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other. Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together, and lift as we climb.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who started out as a swimming instructor to support her young son and ended up building a thriving and growing business with 165 team members teaching 6,500 swimming lessons each week across five environmentally sustainable locations.

Melinda Wittstock:

Miren Oca is the founder of Ocaquatics, a unique “triple bottom line” business owned by its own employees with an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) to foster a strong team culture and address wealth disparity in her community. Ocaquatics is also a certified B Corporation, always evolving and improving its social and environmental sustainability practices. Today she shares her story making waves not only in the swimming world but in transforming how businesses can be a force for social good.

Melinda Wittstock:

Miren will be here in a moment, and first:

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Melinda Wittstock:

When you think of a swimming lesson business, the idea of game changing innovation might not spring to mind. That’s why today’s interview with Ocaquatics founder Miren Oca will inspire you because Miren has found a way to recruit and retain top talent though an employee ownership trust, and EOT – and because her employees own 100% of her business, she’s creating community wealth as she inspires her team to innovate to grow the value of her business. We get into all the details of what an EOT can do for your business, how she set it up and what it means for her own personal wealth. She also talks about how she’s empowered her team members with same day pay, mental health services, and generous paid time off. Miren also shares how becoming B Corp certified also boosted her financial results as her business evolved – think pool covers, UV sanitation, and LED lighting – to boost its social and environmental impact scores.

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Miren Oca and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Miren, welcome to Wings.

Miren Oca:

Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, we should be doing this interview in a swimming pool. I mean, for 30 years you’ve had this teaching swimming business. What was it that inspired you to launch a swimming business?

Miren Oca:

Well, it’s actually, it was luck or just one of those things that happened. I had not planned on this. I grew up in Louisiana, and my parents were immigrants. My father was from Spain, my mother was from Cuba, and they had restaurant, and I think they always wanted me to take on the family business. But I had other plans. I really wanted to go to college, and I really wanted to study biochemistry.

Miren Oca:

My plan was to be an orthopedic surgeon. I really wanted nothing to do with business or the restaurant business or any kind of business at that point. But at the end of my sophomore year, at age 19, I found out I was pregnant. So, I took a break from school. I moved to Miami to be closer to my family, and I had my son, and I needed to make a living. I started teaching swimming again. You know, I had done it through high school. I had done it at Tulane University.

Miren Oca:

And I just started teaching swimming again. And I actually taught at the University of Miami. I went back to school. I got my degree in biology, and I wanted to still go to med school, but I was going to do it later after my son was a little bit older. And so, then it just turned out, you know, the swim school that I was working for at the University of Miami closed and the owners moved out of the country. I still needed a job, so I decided to start my little business. I was 22 years old. It was 1994, and I taught swimming lessons in backyard home pools.

Miren Oca:

And I drove around and taught lessons all over the place in my. And then finally I convinced a hotel, a small hotel, to let me use their pool for lessons. And I did it in exchange for free swimming lessons and water aerobics classes for their hotel guests. And it was really funny. It was really fun. And I, again, this wasn’t a permanent thing. I was just going to teach until my son, his name is Ian, until he got older, and I could go to med school. But that little hotel pool launched my business.

Miren Oca:

I mean, it really, it turned something on. And it really, I loved working with children and families. I loved making them safer around the water. And the more I taught, the more it really became my passion and it really growing this little business. It really was. I loved it and I really realized the impact we could have. And I started hiring people and then we could reach more students. It was just this really great cycle.

Miren Oca:

And I started hiring more pools and hiring more people. And, you know, when you start hiring more pools, more people, you have to start learning about business because I knew nothing about business. My family had that little restaurant, but I had never really spent any time learning about business, so I needed to start learning about business. And I just kind of self-taught self, you know, I’m a huge reader and I started reading every book I could possibly get my hands on how to run a service business and how to, you know, have team members. And we just kind of grew from there.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think that’s true of a lot of entrepreneurial journeys. You end up doing what you love and then you learn all the business stuff along the way, right?

Miren Oca:

Sure.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s probably more typical of a journey than the person who goes to business school and learns all about business but doesn’t have the, the drive or necessarily the interest or some sort of lived experience that they want to kind of, you know, use to help others. So, it’s an inspiring story. And I think of some of your stats right where I’m thinking, you know, you, something like 6500 lessons a week, a total of two and a half million children who’ve been taught swimming.

Miren Oca:

It’s probably closer to 3 million now. It’s really interesting because I was teaching in home, you know, in backyard homes. I had my little hotel pool. I’d started to police country clubs and private schools and things like that. But with the weather in Miami, I decided, you know, I really need to build my own location. I really need to find, you know, somewhere where I could build an inside, something inside. So that started my search. I looked at 70 different spots before I found a landlord that was crazy enough to lease his space to me so that I could put a pool inside of his warehouse.

Miren Oca:

We did that 15 years ago. We’re still in that pool. And it was really interesting being a female business owner in Miami 15 years ago, running a construction project. That was lessons learned along the journey. I really did learn a lot from that, but I pushed, I pushed, I kept going, I kept putting one foot in front of the other. And now we actually have five year-round indoor warm water, beautiful locations.

Miren Oca:

Like you said, we have 165 team members. We teach 6500 swimming lessons a week and in five locations. And I absolutely love what I do. And I never went to med school, so I think that this was. It’s just one of those things that just. I’m so grateful the way it turned out. You know, I don’t think I was very grateful the day I found out I was pregnant when I was 19 years old. But I think having my son changed the trajectory of my life, and I am incredibly grateful because now I have him, and I also have this amazing business that I really, really love.

Melinda Wittstock:

I can only imagine there have been lots of lessons kind of along the way, different challenges. Right. What are some of the biggest ones? I mean, I know nothing about running a swimming school business, so, you know, I’m like the AI, technology, media space. So, like, what were some of the biggest ones? You mentioned the construction and…

Miren Oca:

Well, definitely construction was huge. I learned so much. I know more about construction than I ever wanted to learn. And the whole journey has been this series of ups and downs and crazy, crazy moments and fabulous moments. We could really just. I could tell you horror stories about. I couldn’t believe that I kept going, especially after my first construction project. But I think it was one of those things.

Miren Oca:

We were building an amazing team, and we were building this amazing culture, and I saw these people coming to work with us, and I wanted to continue to grow the business. They were growing with us, and I wanted to have somewhere for them to go. So, I think that’s what drove me. Our team members have really helped me grow the business, but they’ve also helped me stay motivated to continue to grow. We’re service based business. We teach swimming lessons.

Miren Oca:

We start at age six months, and we go up through pre swim team. So, when children are ready to join a swim team, we push them out of the nest so they can go and become a competitive swimmer somewhere else. But we actually have a twofold mission statement. And our mission, our primary mission is to our families. We want to teach our swimmers to love swimming. We want them to become safer, more comfortable, more responsible in, on and around the water. But then we have a secondary mission to our team members, because they have been so important in our growth. And the mission to our team members is to grow them in this framework of social and environmental responsibility so that we can grow the swim school in a sustainable way and make a bigger impact in the world.

Miren Oca:

While we’ve had a lot of challenges, we have had this amazing team that has helped us overcome everything along the way, and we realized we could not have a really strong mission to our families if we didn’t have a strong mission to our team members. You know, our team members have been the most. They’re our primary customer. You know, they’re the ones we work for, and then they turn around and work with our customers and our swimmers and our families. So. So we really, really place a lot of importance on our team, a lot of leadership training. A lot of, you know, we grow from within.

Miren Oca:

Our culture is really all about just developing our team and. And taking care of them.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. And so, you’re organized as a B Corp. And what that actually means for your business and what the advantages are or disadvantages for anybody that has a company that does have a social impact mission. How is that expressed and why did you choose to do it, and what are the advantages of being a B Corp?

Miren Oca:

What that means is we’re a normal corporation, you know, incorporated in the state of Florida. We’re a C Corp. But the B Corp certification is a certification, and it’s given by a third party, a nonprofit called B Lab. And they will certify a company, a for profit company, that focuses on triple bottom line. And instead of just focusing on profit, we focus on people taking care of our people, taking care of the planet, and taking care of our profit. So, we really do use our business as a force for good. And we became certified a few years ago.

Miren Oca:

We’ve always tried to be a good company. We’ve always tried to take care of our community and take care of our swimmers. We do lifesaving work. We make families safer around the water. However, when we found a B Corp certification, we thought, well, let’s look at this, because this might help us really measure all of the things that we do. We took their B impact assessment, and really, any company that has a social or environmental responsibility philosophy, we encourage them to take the b impact assessment. It’s completely free, and it’s this questionnaire.

Miren Oca:

It’s a super dynamic, super rigorous questionnaire. You can score a possible 200 points on this be impact assessment, but all you have to get is an 80 to get certified. And we did this assessment. You know, points are awarded for how you take care of the community, how you take care of your team members, how you, your governance structure. And the first time we took our assessment, it was in 2016, and we scored a 50, and we realized we had some work to do. You know, we really wanted to get better as a company and use our business as a force for good. So, we kept working on it.

Miren Oca:

When we started, it was there were not that many B corps, actually, and now there are almost 9000 b corps on the planet. We are very proud to say that we were the very first swim school to get B Corp certified on the planet earth. And now we actually helped another company in Canada get certified, and there’s another one in England that has been certified. I really think that B Corp certification is a great opportunity for any company that wants to be better, wants to use their business as an environmentally and socially responsible company to measure their impact. And it really has helped us realize tools and realize resources that we can do to get better and has helped our staff. We’re such a labor team member, heavy business, and our team members, we found that our team members, especially the young people that we’re hiring, they want to work for a company that’s making a difference.

Miren Oca:

Because we have this certification, we show that it is measured, you know, that we are making a difference, and they are very proud to work with us. Therefore, they stay longer. We have really great retention that makes our customers happier and our families happier. And then all of that eventually leads to a healthier bottom line. So, it really is a ‘win-win-win’. I think that B Corp certification has helped us be a better company using our business as a force for good, but it also has helped us be a better company in terms of profitable metrics.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. Does it also help you with customers? I mean, is there a marketing side to this as well? Have you noticed any difference there? Do people care from a consumer standpoint?

Miren Oca:

Melinda, that’s a great question. And I do think it really does help in certain markets. I’m in South Florida. I’m in Miami. There aren’t a lot of B corps right now in Miami, but we are really educating our families about what it means to be B Corp certified. We have our B impact, our B Corp logo all over the place. And so, they can ask about what that means. And when we tell them about it, they really appreciate it, and they really understand it.

Miren Oca:

And I definitely think if you look around the country, in other parts of the country, in Colorado and California, there are so many more B corps. And they definitely see now customers are making choices and are choosing to work with certified B Corps because they’re voting with their dollars. They want to work with responsible companies. They want to work with companies that are doing something for the community and doing something for the environment more than just operating their business. So again, I really feel like, you know, in ten years, we’re going to all laugh and say, you know, there was a time when people didn’t know what B Corps were, and then, you know, in ten years, everyone will know what a B Corp is and why they choose B corps over other businesses.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, you know, it’s interesting in the way that business has evolved, right? In terms of there used to be this idea that, you know, you couldn’t do good and do well, but merging that, the opposite is actually true. Like, you can actually do better.

Miren Oca:

By absolutely, absolutely good.

Melinda Wittstock:

But there’s a lot of education on this. I find that women generally, and this isn’t true in all cases, but more likely to do the kind of mission-oriented business like I’m in business because I want to change the world kind of, you know, thing or motivation. But the measurement has always been tricky, like when we’re looking at kind of ESG or DEI or all these kind of acronyms about how you actually measure it. So, when you’re with your employees and your team and whatnot, and you’re figuring out, okay, so what are our metrics and how do we actually measure it? How do you find that? Is that challenging to get the right measurements and figure that out?

Miren Oca:

You know, you’re absolutely right. I definitely think the people are starting to look at that, and it is possible to be a business that’s a force for good, that’s doing more than just their core business. They’re actually making really great impact in their community and on the planet. And people are going to start looking for that. But you need a way to measure that. And that’s where we really found the value in B Lab’s B impact assessment, because it helps you, you know, how are you taking care of your team members? There are five different portions of the B impact assessment, and it’s workers, community, environment, governance, and customers. And it measures how you’re doing in each of those categories. So, you might find, like, you know, we are a heavy environmental footprint business.

Miren Oca:

We use a lot of water and a lot of electricity. And so, it helped us get ideas. You know, we didn’t score really highly when we first took our B impact assessment on the environmental things, but it really helped us see, okay, how can we save on electricity? How can we better and be more efficient in our electricity usage? How can we do put all these things in place that’ll help us save money while we are also saving on electricity and saving on our carbonous footprint.

Melinda Wittstock:

Give me an example of how do you save on electricity, for example, or, like, water? I mean, what are some of the things that you’ve implemented that are innovative in that way?

Miren Oca:

Absolutely. I don’t know how many of your listeners will appreciate this, but in a swim school business, a backyard swimming pool is there, and then the water evaporates. Right. And it evaporates to the environment. But if you have an indoor pool, water evaporates at the same. It still evaporates into the air. So, if at night, if we put a pool cover on our pool so that there’s not as much evaporation, it keeps the heat, if we’re heating the water in the water and it doesn’t create a more humid environment where, like, our dehumidification system, our h vac system has to work overtime. So, it reduces how much that system has to work, and it reduces how much we have to heat the pool, which saves on electricity.

Miren Oca:

And all you have to do is by putting a pool cover, you know.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so simple and yet so simple. And so how many people like, you know, like, you know, you’re an airplane, you’re flying into a city, and you see all these pools. None of them have pool covers.

Miren Oca:

Right, right, right. Well, those are in outdoor pools. And usually, if you are heating your pool and you have an outdoor pool, you should always cover your pool because you will definitely lose a lot of heat at night. And a lot of people don’t think about that. But even in indoor pools, where people even think of it less, you know, because they’re indoors, they should be using pool cover. So. So are there all sorts of little things like that? You know, we have variable frequency drives on our motors and our pool pumps, and we have UV sanitation, which is another way to keep our water healthier instead of just using a lot of chlorine. And there are all sorts of things that we have learned on how to be, how to use, you know, do things in our business that can be healthier for the planet, not as pollutants, you know, not putting as many pollutants in the, in the water and also how to reduce our electrical costs and our water usage.

Miren Oca:

We have learned so much by going through this process, and we love helping other businesses think about these things, whether it’s putting led lighting everywhere or, you know, there are just all sorts of things you can do, and you’ll learn those things by taking the B impact assessment. So really, really a piece of, you know, I would, I would encourage anybody to look at that.

Melinda Wittstock:

That is so interesting. And then you mentioned also your employees and how after your employees. So, what are some of the changes you’ve made there?

Miren Oca:

With our team members, we want to take care of them, but we want to take care of them in how they, of course, they come in and we work with them and we help them in. Most of the people who come to work with us have never taught a swimming lesson before. So, we’re working on their, training them and developing them and getting them certified, but we’re also giving them benefits. Like, you know, we have earned wage income programs, so if they work yesterday, they can actually get their funds today. They can get their wages today. They don’t have to wait and get money every two weeks as traditionally thought. We have mental health programs where they have access to a counselor 24/7 they can call someone completely anonymously and have that opportunity to talk to somebody. And we know that that’s really important, especially right now.

Miren Oca:

We have opportunities for loans, interest free loans, up to $2,000 a year. They can take out loans if they have an emergency. You know, unfortunately, we have found that so many people don’t have enough money in their savings to cover an emergency. You know, they get a flat tire, or they have these things that come up in life. So, we do offer all of those things for them, but we also have pretty generous paid time off programs and policies for our full timers. We actually offer paid time off for people to go vote. And we know this is a voting year, and we have elections coming up. We do all sorts of different benefits that are not what you think of in a traditional job.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, like, on the say, it’s just something like same day pay or whatever. I mean, most payroll companies don’t offer that. So how do you actually do that?

Miren Oca:

We’ve actually been doing it for a few years, and we started with another certified B corporation. They first offered this program, and now what we found is more and more payroll companies are also providing that opportunity. I think that if you have somebody listening and they use the payroll companies, they should speak to them because they would be surprised because this is a trend moving forward. You know, when you pay your team members every two weeks, really, it’s, you’re, you know, some people would think that you’re holding on to their, their money, you know, that they’ve already earned. They’ve already rightfully earned. A lot of payroll companies are now starting to implement this, and I would encourage everybody just to talk to their payroll company. If their payroll company does not, then they can you, they can look at other organizations like pay active. Pay active is a certified b corporation, and they provide this service, and they integrate with your payroll company.

Melinda Wittstock:

Okay, so you take the assessment, you see kind of where, you know, where you can grow, and then from there, it sounds like, you know, Miren, there was a lot of innovation, right? You got the idea for where you needed to improve from that assessment. But then figuring out these solutions, that’s a lot of innovation. Like, there’s so much innovation in your company. So how long did it take you to kind of figure out some of these things? Did you involve your employees in coming up with the ideas, or…

Miren Oca:

Ah, that’s it. You know, we involve them. We have a, we actually have a B impact team. So, they meet once a month, and they come up with ideas on how we can be better for the community, better for the planet, better for our team members. They give us ideas, but we also have a very our decision. And maybe I can throw this in there. Now, we’ve always operated under this. We have a great management program.

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Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Miren Oca, founder and CEO of Ocaquatics, a business leading transformation in corporate social and environmental responsibility.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Miren Oca:

We have great meeting rhythms, and we look for weekly ideas from our team members on how we can be a better company for them, for the planet, for the community. And we get our best ideas from our team members. And so, they, you know, I can guarantee you, if you go to your team and you ask them, they’re on the front line. They’re the ones to really see efficiencies. And they see, they get these ideas of how you can do things better. And it has helped us so much. But now we even have this. You know, we celebrated our 30-year anniversary in February, and we celebrated, yes.

Miren Oca:

And in March, we transitioned to 100% employee ownership through an employee ownership trust. One of our guiding principles has always been ownership thinking and ownership mindset, meaning if you see something and you think we should fix it, tell us. If you make a mistake, own it and, you know, own it. Get better, use it as a learning moment and fix it. And. But now we still have that guiding principle, but it even means more because they are true owners in our company. We’ve been employee owned now for almost four and a half, five months.

Miren Oca:

And it’s been pretty amazing, you know, to see how people really have felt this ownership mentality, and they really do want to make us better and they want to help, and. And it’s been great. It’s been really, really great for our business.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love the whole ownership mindset, and if you’re asking people to have an ownership mindset, but they’re not owners, yes, there’s a bit of a disconnect there. So, what did it take you to figure out the structure of that plan? I mean, a lot of companies, including my own, you know, we give, you know, you know, employee kind of shares and things like that, and, you know, and there’s like an options pool that, you know, those kind of more traditional sort of things. But how did you architect yours? And just, let’s go into the details of that for anyone who’s interested in doing something like that for their company.

Miren Oca:

Absolutely. We’ve had this ownership mindset for a couple of years before we transitioned to the ownership structure, and I think it’s really important. We actually had open book management with our managers so that they could see our financials because we were starting to train them. We actually trained them on personal finances first, and then we went into business finances, and then we opened up the books to them because we knew we were going in this direction and we wanted to kind of get them. Just because you transition your company to ownership, ownership, employee ownership, doesn’t mean that everybody will have an ownership mindset. We have been working on it for quite some time, talking about it, using it, and every week in our meetings, we’ve been talking about that philosophy. But then once we became owners, it even meant more.

Miren Oca:

And so many of them just really appreciated that. Now they’re the understood the workings of the company, and so they could understand where it was going. You know, I’ve been doing this 30 years. I thought we got a lot of interest from private equity, and I really started thinking about, what does succession planning look like? I actually had it on the last couple of years on my list of things to do at the beginning of every year. This year, I’m going to figure it out. And I had been researching and researching. I went to my son first. I asked him if he wanted to take on the company, and that was not an interest.

Miren Oca:

He did not want to do that. And then I started thinking about a DIY. You know, I was going to kind of give it some shares or equity to some of our team members, but I wasn’t quite sure what that would look like. I also looked at doing an ESOP, an employee stock ownership plan. And those are much more. Many more people are familiar with an employee ownership. I did feasibility studies, I engaged an attorney, and that’s a little bit different of a plan.

Miren Oca:

And then I discovered an EOT, an employee ownership trust. It is the primary source of ownership in the United Kingdom, but there are very few here in the United States. I would say there are maybe under 30 or 40 in the United States. I think it’s growing to, because it is such an amazingly flexible instrument. I’m really happy the way we structured ours. We went with an advisor, we interviewed several. There are several out there now. We did go with an advisor, and he helped us transition 100% of our business to an employee ownership trust.

Miren Oca:

That means, basically, I sold the company to a trust. They are paying me back out of the cash flow of the company over the next several years. And meanwhile, the trust is holding the shares for the team members that qualify. And in our situation, any team member who has worked with us for more than 2500 hours qualifies to be an owner. And what that means is they don’t get equity, and they don’t get a share in stock. Every year they get a share, they get their portion of the profits at the end of every year. It’s a very sophisticated profit-sharing program, but it is really an opportunity to build more wealth. And the reason I chose to do this instead of selling out, selling to private equity was I wanted our ownership to remain local.

Miren Oca:

I really wanted it to, to be here. I wanted to help the Miami community that we’re in. And in Miami, and I’m sure like many other places around the country, there are many people who work very, very, very hard, and they do very well. And then there are people who work very, very, very hard and have eight people living in a two-bedroom apartment, paying, you know, thousands of dollars a month in rent. And I really wanted to help kind of close that wealth gap a little bit in our community. And I felt like keeping the ownership local, selling to our employees was the best way to do that. So that’s why we chose the employee ownership trust.

Melinda Wittstock:

That is just so inspiring. And so technically, what does that mean when it comes time for you to kind of exit or retire or whatever, does it. You were saying that the trust pays you back over. So, what does that actually look like?

Miren Oca:

Well, on February 29, I was 100% owner of Oak Aquatic Swim School. But on March 1, when the transaction actually went through, I am now a co-owner with 50 of our team members, so. And what that means is the trust is holding the shares. It’s holding everything. So, at the end of the year, I’ll get a share in the profit just like everybody else now. Yes. I’m also getting the note paid off. And, you know, they’re paying that in a monthly note as if they were taking out a loan.

Miren Oca:

I did seller financing. I could have gone to a bank, in the bank. Bank could have loaned the company the money to buy me out. But I chose to do seller financing because I just, you know, I’m not going anywhere. I’m still serving as the CEO. I’m still here. But if I wanted to go, if I were ready to retire tomorrow, it would have still been a really great option, because you could have gotten outside financing to finance the transaction. So, I can go at any time, really, if I were to retiree, I would just stop being the CEO because I’m still here as an employee and as an employee owner.

Melinda Wittstock:

And then you’d still be getting your profit share or whatever, right?

Miren Oca:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

A lot of founders, you know, when they start businesses, especially in my world, technology, you know, you’re on this kind of, you know, five-to-ten-year kind of ramp to exit, and then you get this huge chunk of change, and off you go.

Miren Oca:

Right, right.

Melinda Wittstock:

It wouldn’t work that way for you.

Miren Oca:

Well, it is, because the company is still buying the business from me.

Melinda Wittstock:

You’re just getting it over time and so.

Miren Oca:

Exactly. Yes, exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

Are there any tax advantages to that as well?

Miren Oca:

Well, in an ESOP, the employee stock ownership plan, there were more tax advantages, but in an EOT, we’ve structured it so that it still works out quite well for us. And that’s why so many people look at an employee stock ownership plan. There are really amazing tax benefits because it is overseen. It’s a retirement benefit plan. It is overseen by the Department of Labor and ERISA, but there are tremendous tax benefits. So, I would encourage people to look at it, but it does cost quite a bit more. Our transaction was probably a fifth of what it would have costed to do an ECU up.

Miren Oca:

And the trust document is very, very flexible. I was able to put in the trust that I want this. It’s a perpetual purpose trust. I want this organization to continue to strive for B Corp certification. I want this organization to continue to provide I could write in basically whatever I wanted. However, I wanted the company to continue. And so that was important to me because I really do feel like, you know, we’re valuable to the community in that we teach swimming lessons, but also that we develop our team members and that we give so much to the community. You know, we’re 1% for the planet partners, which means we donate 1% of our gross annual revenues to environmental causes.

Miren Oca:

We do all these other things, and I wanted that to continue with the business.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. That’s so inspiring. Your business is very sophisticated.

Miren Oca:

Well, thank you. It’s kind of happened by accident. You know, we’ve just kind of grown and kept learning. And when we had to learn something, we read a book on it. It has been a great ride, but it has been 30 years. You know, it has taken quite a while. It’s that Steve Jobs quote.

Miren Oca:

Everybody looks at it now, and overnight success takes a very long time. You know, I kind of butchering his quote, but it’s something along those lines. It really did. We worked really hard to get to where we are now, and I am so incredibly proud of where we are now. What’s really fun is I was at dinner last night at a restaurant, and a family came up to me with their 18-year-old daughter and said, you taught her to swim 18 years ago. And it’s just really cool to see the impact we’ve had on the community, making families safer around the water. And also, with the beach cleanups and the community cleanups and the environmental projects we do.

Miren Oca:

Am proud of how this business has grown to just be a really valuable thing in the community.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so, what’s next for you? Do you have expansion plans into other cities, or how do you look at all that?

Miren Oca:

Well, it’s funny. We actually have expansion plans here in Miami. We still have a couple of sites that we’d like to look at and do, and then we’re just looking at what is next and what that means and possibly doing some nonprofit work in terms of getting more. There are still many people in underserved communities that do not get access to really great swimming lessons. And so, we would like to help with that. And it’s just like closing that wealth gap with our team members. We’d really like to close that opportunity gap with different communities.

Miren Oca:

We’re really excited about the future. I’m really excited that the growth of the business doesn’t just rely on me. The team is really excited about continuing that. And they’re also excited about giving, you know, we don’t say giving back. We say paying it forward. And we’ve been so incredibly fortunate over the last 30 years that now we are paying forward our good fortune.

Melinda Wittstock:

So that’s such a, well, you’re, you’re such an inspiration. I wish you were here in LA; you know.

Miren Oca:

Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. And, you know, LA is one of those places where there are probably 100 B corps in LA county, you know, so it’s funny, it’s one of those areas where I really admire the work that the business community has done there because they are working on environmental and social responsibility. You know, it’s little by little, it’s a, it’s a pebble and an avalanche of change, as Rebecca Henderson, you know, really great author says. And we just have to keep working on this because I think together, you know, we’re stronger and I think that we can really make a difference in, in the community. So, I really am excited about using business as a force for good.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. Well, I always want to make sure how people can find you and work with you. If they have any questions about the B Corp or they want, they’re in Miami and they want to do the swimming lessons for their kids or whatever. What’s the best way?

Miren Oca:

Absolutely. Well, you can find us on ocaquatics.com. You can follow us on Instagram. We have lots of information there. And we are always, we love having visitors, whether it’s students and swimmers or businesses. We talk to a lot of businesses, especially about environmental and social responsibility. But we also now are talking to a lot of businesses about employee ownership and the opportunities and what it has meant for us and, and what it could mean for them.

Miren Oca:

You know, it’s, it’s really, I think this is an interesting opportunity for a lot of people to think it’s an alternative to other exit strategies. So, we’re really excited to talk about our experience.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Miren Oca:

Well, it’s been my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Miren Oca is the founder and CEO of Ocaquatics, a business leading transformation in corporate social and environmental responsibility. Check out the episode on Podopolo, where you can comment and create and share your favorite moments with our viral episode clip feature.

Melinda Wittstock:

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