Whether you’re a small business owner or work with businesses in your community, you’ve arrived at the right place.
CDI’s Business Ownership Solutions (BOS) Program helps business owners successfully plan their exit strategy and enjoy a well-earned retirement.
Why your exit-planning matters
- Owners of 200,000 small businesses throughout New England and New York State are looking to retire in the next few years.
- Only 17% of those owners have a documented exit plan for themselves and their business.
- Only 1 in 5 commercial business listings find a buyer and fewer than 1 in 5 family transitions succeed.
- The smaller and more rural a business, the more likely it may liquidate and close when an owner retires.
Hear their stories
Here’s how you do it
Learn about your options for successfully exiting a business from those who know best.
Planning for Tomorrow is a video series that will help you get a head start on your exit strategy. This 3-module video series is an accessible and engaging guidebook for business owners and advisors alike, and includes real testimonies from small businesses across the country.
Part 1: Know What You Want
Part 2: Know Your Options
Part 3: Employee Ownership
Meet the BOS Team
Rob Brown
Program Director
Rob is the Director of Business Ownership Solutions (BOS) at CDI. He is a nationally recognized expert in the field of employee ownership transitions, and has assisted dozens of businesses explore and execute transitions to worker-owned cooperatives. Rob leads regional and national programs that educate and advise business owners on exit planning processes and options, and has developed extensive education and training programs for boards, management, and members of new worker-owned cooperatives. Rob participates in several national networks promoting the strategy of employee ownership transitions and best practices in the field, including as an Executive Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University. Prior to joining CDI, Rob was the founding Executive Director of Opportunity Maine, a statewide organizing, research, and advocacy nonprofit focused on workforce and economic development. He has a varied background non-profit and for-profit business development and management, community organizing, communications, and economic policy research and advocacy. Rob lives with his wife and son in Northport, Maine.
Heather Foran
Education and Training Manager
Heather is the Education and Training Manager in CDI’s Business Ownership Solutions (BOS) Program. In this role, she supports worker-owners in the organizational and leadership development of the cooperative and coordinates all training and coaching following the transition to worker ownership. For nearly a decade prior to coming to CDI, Heather worked with Coverdale O.D., a U.K.-based organization providing experiential training programs for business and nonprofit leaders to build skills in collaboration, shared leadership, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and systems transformation. She spent many years as a member and board member of the Southern Maine Workers’ Center and was deeply involved in running a worker support hotline and free legal clinic. Heather is the co-founder of the Field Academy, a traveling high school program that brings together youth from across the US in partnership with community hosts to learn about and develop leadership skills towards addressing critical social and environmental issues. Heather has a Master’s in Transformative Leadership and Organizational Development from Prescott College.
Ryan Demers
Cooperative Development Specialist
Ryan Demers is a Cooperative Development Specialist in CDI’s Business Ownership Solutions (BOS) Program. Ryan works with existing businesses, the owner(s), and their employees to support an employee buyout, and supports the cooperative after a transaction takes place. Ryan focuses on financial education, board training, management training, and designs customized workshops for clients based on their needs. Prior to joining CDI, Ryan was the General Manager at the North Country Food Co-op, the only full-service grocery store in downtown Plattsburgh, NY. During his time there, he grew the co-op to 16 employees and nearly $2MM in sales and successfully stewarded the business through the Covid pandemic. He brings great skills and experience in cooperative management and board development, conflict resolution, human resources, and financial analysis and education. Ryan’s formal education was in Atmospheric Science, but after graduate school, he decided to take a different path when he discovered a passion for the cooperative business model. Ryan sits on the board of trustees for the Strand Center for the Arts in Plattsburgh, and is a member of the board of directors for ANCA, the Adirondack North Country Association.
Terri Bruce
Program Project Coordinator
Terri Bruce is the Program Project Coordinator for the Northeast Transition Initiative (NETI) within CDI’s Business Ownership Solutions (BOS) Program. She has more than twenty years of experience in the nonprofit and government sectors, primarily in community, economic, and workforce development, with a combination of high-level policy development and direct service experience. She specializes in program evaluation, strategic planning, and organizational development, delighting in helping programs and organizations measure their impact and gain the evidence-based tools they need to tell the story of the work they do. Prior to joining CDI, she worked providing training and technical assistance to nonprofits across the country on a variety of organizational development and strategic planning topics including data management, data analysis, and evaluation.
CDI is proud to be a partner of the Northeast Transition Initiative (NETI), a partnership of organizations and lenders with comprehensive experience in exit-planning and ownership transitions. Visit NETI’s website to learn more: ownershiptransition.org
