You might not think about the hard-working people behind real estate signs you see, but if you happen to be in New York City, there is more than a passing chance that sign was designed, made, and installed by a worker-owned cooperative. The founder of Green Mountain Graphics, based in Queens, New York, has spent close to 30 years building a solid reputation for quality customer service and creative solutions. As he neared retirement age, he wanted a plan that would allow him to step back from some of his day-to-day responsibilities at work, while also rewarding the long-term employees who helped make the business so successful. Selling the business to a worker cooperative proved to be the answer he was looking for.

Many of Green Mountain Graphic’s employees are women or Latinx. Average pay, while modest, is sufficient to provide a living wage in costly New York City. If Green Mountain Graphics can maintain its current level of profitability and customer service—which worker-owners are confident they can—co-op members can reasonably expect to receive annual patronage dividends equal to almost 20% of base pay as a result of becoming a cooperative.

Like other firms in the signage and graphics field, Green Mountain Graphics has little in the way of hard collateral to offer a lender, so a creative approach was needed. The FJWO joined with a fellow CDFI to provide the underlying financing to purchase the company and convert it to a cooperative. The selling owner also supplied some funds. In addition to the term loan, the FJWO gave the new co-op a business line of credit. Such a resource is vital for a company in their line of business, but one the company’s bank was unwilling to offer without a personal guarantee from the selling owner. Instead, FJWO stepped in and, evaluating the loan on strong historical performance and cash flow, was able to offer the line free of such problematic conditions.

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