I attended the ESOP Association's 2007 Las Vegas Conference & Trade Show last week.
This year's record-setting attendance was over 1,200. The conference provides an excellent opportunity to stay current on ESOP issues and to network with ESOP companies and professionals. This year was no exception.

Dr. J. Robert Beyster delivered the keynote address on Thursday:

"The subject I will present is "Beyond the ESOP," and my message will be that there is more to employee ownership than just ESOPs. We employed a variety of different equity sharing techniques at SAIC to achieve our goals of widespread employee ownership."

He shared his afterthoughts in Small Business Challenges.

On Friday, ESOP Association President Michael Keeling provided his "Commentary on Pending ESOP Legislation and Potential Impact on ESOPs". The Rangel Proposal was a major focus of the commentary, including the negative impact it would have on S Corporations with synthetic equity and future S Corporation ESOP candidates. Most importantly, he stressed that all ESOPs should be concerned about this proposal, regardless of whether or not they are directly impacted by it.