SiteWorks, a landscape development and maintenance company based in Chandler, Ariz., recently became a 100-percent employee-owned company.

SiteWorks was ranked No. 49 on the 2021 LM150 list with $45,139,207 in 2020 revenue. SiteWorks was profiled by LM in 2018 when co-founders Chris Malham and Rob Spoor shared how the company grew from an idea in 1998 into a business in 2004.

“Rob and I always thought one day, if we ever wanted to go do our own deal, let’s start a company that we always wished we could work for,” Malham said. “We’re really opposite in a lot of ways, but when it comes to running a business and how to treat employees, it’s his saying, ‘We’re closer than two coats of paint.’”

Malham says the process to transition to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) took about 8 months.

“We honestly felt that becoming employee-owned was the best way to financially dignify the ongoing respect we have always had for our coworkers, many who have been with us from the very beginning,” he said. “We are now fortunate to be the largest privately held landscape company in Arizona. For our company, it absolutely was the very proper way to prepare for our eventual succession plan.”