Congressional Company Visits Rod Reinertson Director of Automation

Congressional Company Visits Rod Reinertson Director of Automation, Van Meter Industrial President-Elect, Iowa/Nebraska Chapter

Agenda: • Who are your Congressmen and Senators? – How do you contact them? • Do you know your Congressional districts? – Why is that important? • What do they know about ESOPs? – What is there position on ESOPs? – Shared capitalism is a significant part of the U. S. economic model • What do they know about your company? – ESOP History & culture • How do you get them to visit your company? – What to do when you get them there?

Go to http: //www. house. gov/house/Member. WWW_by_State. shtml to find yours! Iowa’s 1 st District – Bruce Braley, 2 nd District – David Loebsack, 3 rd District – Leonard Boswell, 4 th District - Tom Latham, 5 th District – Steve King Note: Loebsack is also a member of House Education and the Workforce Committee

Goto http: //www. senate. gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm. cfm for yours! Iowa Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin

Goto http: //www. esopassociation. org/pdfs/Advocacy_Kit. pdf or http: //www. esopassociation. org/pdfs/Congressional_Visit_Kit. pdf

Other key items: • Find the contact person (Administrator, Scheduler or Aide) of the Congressman's or Senators office nearest you. – Discuss best time for a visit – Be flexible • Write a letter • Prepare a one page handout on your company and ESOP • Get employee owners involved – Queue up employee owners to share stories • Take pictures • Send out press release announcing the visit • Follow- up letter after visit – Visit them in DC while at ESOP Annual Conference

VMI’s One page handout

Create an agenda for the visit 9 -9: 30 am: Company history 9: 30 -10 am: ESOP history and ESOP Communication committee activities 10 -10: 30 am: What employee ownership culture means to us? Engagement; How that affects our customers and our community. 10: 30 -11: 30 am: Tour facility and meet employee owners 11: 30 am - 12: 30 pm: Lunch and give opportunity to speak on their position on ESOP and any activity they are aware of in their respective offices and DC in regards to ESOPs. Note: It may be hard to get this much of their time

Senator Chuck Grassley’s visit to Van Meter Industrial – “The Perfect Tour”

Congressman David Loebsack’s visit to Van Meter Industrial – “The Perfect Tour”

• Finally…Be persistent • If all else fails…. visit them! Thank You, Rod Reinertson rreinertson@vmind. com