Fostering Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Ownership

FED History

Introduction

In 2005, I became President of the Foundation for Enterprise Development (FED), which was created in 1986 by my late father, Bob Beyster. Renamed in 2017 as Beyster Foundation for Enterprise Development , the BFED has had an exceptional history of advancing research, thought-leadership, and education/training programs at the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship and broad-based employee ownership (BBEO). Today, the holders of our endowed positions and recipients of our annual grants are re-imagining global educational resources, high-road government policy, and practical interventions through entrepreneurial experimentation so that more companies will offer meaningful ownership and participation with their workers, and through that, create thriving communities and economies.

Mary Ann Beyster Managing Director, BFED

Advanced Research

BFED is focused on applied research by leading institutions. BBEO has proven to be strategically beneficial to companies, employees, and economies by creating and sharing wealth with more than just a few. Advancing BBEO and associated employee participation takes a thorough understanding of the range of solutions from Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP), equity stock purchase plans, options plans, employee ownership trusts (EOT), cooperatives, and others forms of shared ownership.

Ownership Education

Employee ownership is a process, not a transaction. The hard work of establishing, converting, and sustaining companies adopting broad-based employee (or shared) ownership models with enabling management practices is a steady and iterative journey with founders, executives, board members, and employees. We support education and training programs delivered by academia, non-profits, and industry that help the next generation of change makers.

Community Catalyst

BFED is focused on innovative place-based and community-based initiatives that are directly engaged with owners and entrepreneurs who are likely to adopt and sustain shared ownership models, learn from each other, and build additional support systems in the community/ecosystem.

Our Founder

Dr. J. Robert Beyster’s employee ownership philosophy: “Someone who is involved with the company should own a piece of it;” and “Those who really perform well are rewarded by having their stock increased. People involved in the company should share in its success.”

He believed in this philosophy and as a result, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) grew into one of the largest and most successful companies in the world. Dr. Beyster knew that applying this philosophy of shared wealth and responsibility to other organizations can make a real difference in the economic lives of people everywhere. His trust in the power of employee ownership also led him to create the FED.

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