Private Company Boards of the Year 2016 Named - Pelstar

From Private Company Director Magazine. For more information, contact David Shaw, Private Company Director Magazine.

Private Company Boards of the Year 2016 award presented to the Board of Pelstar LLC

The awards, presented at the Private Company Governance Summit on May 12 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., honor private company boards who best serve their stakeholders: owners, shareholders, employees and community, with best practices in their structure and performance.

The Private Board of the Year awards were created to recognize private companies who go above and beyond legal governance requirements and who commit to the highest levels of governance, whether through fiduciary and advisory boards.

Closely-held, family-owned and investor/private equity-owned companies were eligible for nomination. Dozens of nominations were received; nineteen private company boards were selected as semi-finalists, and nine boards were named finalists.

Pelstar LLC

Pelstar, LLC designs, manufactures and markets a comprehensive line of professional products under the 90-year-old venerable brand of Health o meter Professional Scales. Originally formed in 1919 as the Continental Scale Works, its heritage is as the inventor of the doctor's beam scale.

Pelstar was created when a group of private equity investors bought a small division of the former Sunbeam. With strong governance, the company now commands more than 50% market share, and its growth rate outpaces its industry peers.

Key Governance Characteristics

Chair and CEO roles are separated.
Compensation and Audit committees are composed only of independent directors.
Audited results are reviewed with auditors reporting to the board during executive session.
Executive session is held at every board meeting.
Periodic succession planning, cyber threat and cyber defense discussions are included.
Quarterly board meetings include agenda and minutes, plus an annual letter to shareholders.

"Our board doesn't just go down the agenda and tick boxes," says CEO Dan Maeir. "It promotes a transparency that goes throughout the whole company, encouraging our people to take risks and make decisions. Rick Crandall, our Executive Chairman, is a cheerleader, a team leader and a culture setter."

Award Acceptance Talk: Dan Maeir, Pelstar CEO and Board Member

I am honored to be here representing the Board of Directors of Pelstar.

Recognizing private companies for their good work helps to bring attention to the real engines of our economy. Our company makes professional medical scales under the 100 year-old Health o meter brand.

Our Executive Chairman, Rick Crandall, is deeply experienced both with venture companies and as a CEO and Board member of public companies. He was clear when on-boarding me and other senior management as to what he expected: that we are going to extract the best principles of public company Board governance, but omit much of the government red tape.

Tone at the top is based on three principles: a strong ethical standard, passionate engagement and response to customers, and making innovation a priority.

We believe that driving a culture of customer responsiveness to every corner of the company creates a cultural differentiator that is very difficult for competitors to copy, and we are winning with it. We call this differentiator "Weigh Easier": make it easy for our customers to use our scales, and make it easy for our customer to do business with us.

We were reborn as a private equity purchase neglected at Sunbeam when it was in bankruptcy in 2002. Today, we are the market-share leader in North and South America, growing at 3 times the market growth rate with double-digit EBITDA margins and a growing employee base.

Thank you for recognizing our Board and its governance principles. It has added to the pride we have in our Company.