Deborah Groban Olson, Attorney at Law, PLLC

You were serving on the Board of OANB when I started working here in 2013. I joined the Production team in hopes to just come in to work every day, do my job to the best of my ability and ride the wave to retirement. How quickly things changed! Within a few years, I became Receptionist, a member of the Governance Committee and then an Internal Board Member.
You were welcoming right from the start up of the Governance Committee. I admired your guidance and ability to thoroughly engage all meeting attendees. Your ESOP knowledge and experience is second to none. As Board Chair, you have seen many changes and been faced with many challenges and you have been successful at handling them all with authority and grace.
Thank you for being a guiding force for so many years. Your hard work and dedication are very much appreciated. I offer my best wishes to you for good health and happiness in the years to come.”

Deb and I worked together on a board of an ESOP company. As Chairperson of the Board she was instrumental in developing a decision making system that brought clarity and a positive change in the culture. As a leader she always made sure all participants in board and committee meetings had the opportunity to contribute their thoughts in a non-threatening way. She was always asking questions to make sure she understood the discussion topic and drew good conclusions and/or thought provoking comments. She was always available to any employee, management or board person by phone or in person. Her knowledge of ESOP law is outstanding. I could always consult with her if I had a question and she would have the answer or get me an answer very quickly. A great resource.

Deborah Olson is well-known as a highly experienced employee ownership attorney. I know Deb best for her leadership in building a great participation system at a company where I worked with her. She led a governance committee that created a workplace participation decision-making system at an employee-owned manufacturing company with 60 worker-owners. The company had had confusion and friction over who made what decisions. They grouped the types of decisions into categories (financial, personnel, operations, and governance), and for each type of decision determined who had input, who had primary decision-making authority, and who if anyone had to ratify the decision. The result has been a positive change in employee relations and culture, since people now know who makes what decisions and how they can have input.

“Atty. Deborah Groban Olson is an excellent attorney, whom I would recommend highly to anyone. She has kept our ESOP current with changes in the law and helped us correct problems with our ESOP that occurred before we hired her, and has worked with us to develop appropriate policy changes as our ESOP has matured. When we hired her there was a lot of mistrust between labor and management. She was able to diffuse concerns about ulterior motives, by taking a professional, fact-based approach to identifying and fixing legal problems. She has also connected us to outside resources as we have diversified.” Steve Mullan, CEO, MBC Ventures, Inc.

Deb has been a national leader in worker-supporting and union-friendly employee-ownership law for decades.