Business owners spend years building their companies, and some choose to give employees a stake in their success. A new documentary will share the stories of four Huntsville aerospace and defense companies that embraced employee ownership.
“Safe Landing: The Story of Employee Ownership in Huntsville” will premiere Oct. 22 at 10 a.m. Central on the Alabama Center for Employee Ownership’s website. The film features Avion, Torch Technologies, deciBel and APT-Research, following the founders and employees who helped shape their companies’ futures.
“When we started Torch, we wanted to build more than just a successful company,” said Bill Roark, co-founder of Torch Technologies. “We wanted to create a place where employees could share in the success they helped create, build wealth for their families, and take pride in knowing they were owners.”
Roark and Don Holder founded Torch in Huntsville in 2002. The company’s employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, became effective in 2004 and by 2011 it was fully employee owned, according to Torch’s history.
“This documentary tells an important story about entrepreneurs who believed there was a better way and the employee-owners who turned those ideas into successful businesses,” Roark said. “I am proud that Torch is part of that story, and I appreciate ALCEO’s efforts to recognize the impact employee ownership has had on our employees, their families, and our community.”
Those experiences are at the heart of the documentary, which presents employee ownership as one option for Alabama business owners planning their next chapter.
“ALCEO’s goal is to inform business owners and their employees about the real benefits of employee ownership,” said Executive Director Kevin Burns.
For Burns, those benefits reach the business owner, the employees and the community around them.
“This and the success of the other companies featured in ‘Safe Landing’ highlight the three-fold benefit of employee ownership: business owners can step away on their own terms and protect the legacy they built, employees have a real path to building wealth and a stake in the company’s future, and our communities keep strong, locally rooted businesses and good jobs.”
According to ALCEO’s announcement, the documentary was filmed in spring 2025 with help from local and national partners. Local partners included the University of Alabama in Huntsville, its Small Business Development Center and APEX Accelerator, and the Community Foundation of Greater Huntsville.
National partners included the Employee Ownership Expansion Network, Project Equity and the National Center for Employee Ownership. ALCEO, a nonprofit, helps Alabama business owners and employees learn about employee ownership and find resources to make the transition.
Roark hopes the stories will give other business owners something to consider as they plan for their companies’ futures.
“My hope is that this documentary will encourage more business leaders to consider employee ownership,” he said. “I have seen firsthand what it can accomplish, and I believe the best opportunities are still ahead of us.”
Sherri Blevins is a reporter for 256 Today.
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