PTA Plastics creates ESOP in Longmont

LONGMONT – Employees at plastics injection molding company PTA Plastics now own the company through an employee stock-ownership plan trust set up by president Ray Seeley.

Based in Oxford, Connecticut, PTA Plastics has revenue of more than $35 million from its operations in Longmont and Connecticut.

Seeley decided to sell 100 percent of his PTA stock back to the company through the trust, which purchased it for the benefit of the company’s 168 employees, according to a press statement. About 85 of the employees work in Longmont.

Under the plan, a certain value of the stock from the trust is allocated to the employees, Seeley said. As such, it provides more future retirement income to the employees, although it’s not a pension plan, he said.

“The more successful we are, the more it’s worth,” Seeley said.

In general, an employee stock ownership plan encourages employees to buy stock in the company and to participate in company management. Companies with such plans may take tax deductions for ESOP dividends that are passed on to participating employees, among other things.

Among Seeley’s reasons to set up the trust was to ensure that the company would maintain a presence in Colorado, according to the press statement.

“It provided an acceptable balance between meeting my personal financial goals and keeping PTA and its employees positioned for future success, by preserving the culture and core values that have been responsible for getting us to where we are today,” Seeley said in the press statement.

The private company started in 1953 and has been in Boulder County since 1967, Seeley said. In addition to plastic injection molding, the company also does production tooling.

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