CHROMA TECHNOLOGY
Year Founded: 1991
Years of Employee Ownership: 30
Headquarters: Bellows Falls, VT
Additional Offices: Olching, Germany; Xiamen City, China; Yokohama, Japan
Employees: 100+
Business: Manufacturing
Chroma was founded in 1991 as a 100% employee-owned company. They are a leading manufacturer and OEM supplier of highly precise optical filters using thin-film coating technology.
On employee ownership they say, “We value the economic and social needs of the individual as well as the needs of the company as a whole. This is how we create the committed, involved and healthy employee body that is key to achieving our mission.
Chroma says, “We believe we demonstrate how a for-profit company can exercise capitalism to the benefit of people and the environment. We think that the profits of honest work, ingenuity and sweat equity can be shared equally; that workers can be owners without having to be entrepreneurs; that the gap in pay between the highest and lowest paid employee needn’t be a chasm; that health care costs shouldn’t interfere with providing health care and that, though our hair may turn gray as we approach retirement age, it needn’t be from anxiety about how to afford retirement.”
