Our Mission
Inviting scalable, high-integrity businesses to join us in building a strong community of employee owners.
Located on the north coast of New York State near the shores of Lake Ontario, we are a company of performance-driven individuals empowered to succeed.
North represents our guiding star and the moral compass to lead ourselves and others to success. Coast signifies the wide expanse of opportunities that we embrace on our journey.
We invite you to join us and, together, build a legacy.
About Us
A message from our CEO
Welcome! It is my honor to connect with executives like you who are seeking positive and sustainable futures for their businesses and their valued teams. At NCH, we pride ourselves on team empowerment, wise investments, and our ability to capitalize on strategic opportunities. But of equal importance is the pride we share by helping to put food on the table and a roof over the heads of thousands of families nationwide. We are in the people success business, and we would love to meet you.
Leslie Kass
Who We Are
- Proud to be an employee-owned company
- A team of seasoned executives who excel among our many disciplines—financial expertise, resilience engineering, talent management, fleet management, and more
- Leveraging transformational change and empowerment to build a unique and sustainable business model
- Responsible investors
- Deeply ethical and committed to keeping our promises to our employees, customers, and partners
- Interested in strategic investments that not only align with our interests but benefit all parties
Leadership Team
What Matters Most
First and foremost, we are employee owners empowered for success. Together, we embrace a culture of learning, curiosity, and empathy. And we share a collective desire to improve the lives of those around us.
We care about the safety of all—employees, customers, family, friends, and the public—and have spent years applying the principles of human performance and resilience engineering to actively create safety in our workplaces and beyond.
At North Coast Holdings, we:
- Foster diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Proactively design employee-centered experiences that matter
- Focus on delivering the optimal customer experience by taking the friction out of doing business with us.
- Are reinventing our approach to talent acquisition and development
- Invest in leadership development and ensuring all team members have the tools to succeed
Lastly, we have a heart for social responsibility. We provide tens of thousands annually in philanthropic donations and employee volunteer hours for national, regional, and local organizations including the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, and many more.
Our Strategy
We target companies with a strong and capable leadership team that are:
- Highly ethical with shared values
- Customer- and employee-focused
- Scalable with high growth potential
- Dedicated to ensuring their employees remain in good hands—today and always
- Purpose-driven
- Centered on safety and human performance
- Committed to developing their leaders
- Interested in cocreating a better future
Our Operating Principles
- Responsible
- Respectful
- Improvement-minded
- Trustworthy
- Inclusive
- Acts with integrity
Our Brands
As an employee-owned firm, we offer significant benefits to you and your team including a strong capital structure and willingness to invest in the right tools and resources to ensure your success.
Employee Ownership
North Coast Holdings has been 100% employee owned since the year 2000. Founded in 1938, NCH grew to 700 employees during the first 62 years of business. In the 22 years since becoming an ESOP S-Corp, we have grown to over 4,000 employees. As an ESOP, we can reinvest in our company to best serve our customers and employees.
Interesting facts about ESOPs:
- ESOPs help narrow the wealth inequality gap.
Employees at ESOP companies tend to have greater savings than their peers in non-ESOP companies and can retire with greater dignity. - ESOPs boost employee engagement.
When ESOPs are formed, shares of company stock are allocated to all employees, making them employee owners who share in the rewards if the stock rises. As a result, they are more invested in helping the business succeed and more likely to tackle problems.
What is an S Corp ESOP?
In the simplest terms, an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) is a retirement plan. But it is much more than that: ESOPs motivate employees, increase productivity, improve worker retention, keep jobs local, contribute to business longevity, and so much more.
What is An ESOP | The ESOP Association
Importantly, the NCH ESOP requires no out-of-pocket contribution from employees.