Q: New Belgium has a unique set of employee perks. What do you offer?
A: For starters, we make beer for a living, so free beer (one case a week per employee) is probably our most accessed perk, although we don’t drink while we’re working.
One of the really meaningful perks is employee ownership. When you’ve worked at New Belgium for one year, you become enrolled in the employee stock ownership plan. Thirty-two percent of the company is owned by our co-workers.
When you’ve worked here a year, you also get a cruiser bike. For a five-year anniversary, we take people on a trip to Belgium.
Q: New Belgium has made a name for itself by being one of Colorado’s most sophisticated users of renewable energy and energy conservation techniques. What has prompted you to do that?
A: Being environmental stewards has been a core value since the very start of the company in 1991. We’ve attracted people drawn to that kind of commitment and energy, and that has created a synergy. That in turn helps moves the needle farther.
Q: Some of your innovations have had high capital costs, such as the $9 million project to capture methane fuel from your wastewater and treat the remaining waste. How do you justify those costs?
A: Part of the beauty of being a privately held company is that we get to choose what we do with profits. For New Belgium, it’s very meaningful to use profits to reduce our footprint and to increase what we feel are best business practices.
We choose to spend some of that money on alternative or sustainable technologies. There are some with quick paybacks and some with long paybacks.
If the longer paybacks are significant steps in reducing energy or water consumption, we’re particularly drawn to those kinds of technology choices.
We justify them in part through the payback and in part because it’s good business practice and good environmental practice. It just feels like the right thing to do.
Q: If the economy slows down, will New Belgium and other craft brewers be hurt by consumers switching to lower- cost beer?
A: We’ve had some economic slowdowns, but the craft beer segment is doing fabulously right now. As a culture, we are accustomed to life’s little pleasures. Will there be people who say they can’t afford to buy that beer anymore? Yes. But there will be a greater percentage of people who say there are some things they will not compromise on – for instance, coffee, craft beer and organic produce.
Q: If you’re in a bar that doesn’t serve New Belgium products, what do you drink?
A: One of the hallmarks of craft brewers is that we are pretty fond of other craft brewers. I’ll try what’s local. If I were on the East Coast, I might drink Dogfish Head, Harpoon, Magic Hat or Brooklyn. If I were on the West Coast, I would drink Deschutes, Elysian, Russian River or Sierra Nevada.
Q: What are your interests and passions outside the office?
A: I like to carve out as much spare time as I can for my two boys and my husband. After that, bike riding, backcountry skiing, gardening, reading. I’m thinking of taking up fly-fishing.
Q: Which skills from your former career as a social worker have transferred to running a brewery?
A: All of them. The CSU social work program is a generalist program, and social work generally is a systems perspective. We look at what’s wrong with a system if it’s not working properly and how things interrelate. That’s a big piece of working here.
Social work also has informed my sense of best business practices that create community.
Q: In a male-dominated brewing business, how did it happen that the top three executive positions at New Belgium are held by women?
A: It really wasn’t intentional. There was no plan for that.
I’m here because I co-founded the company with my husband, Jeff Lebesch. Our chief operating officer, Jennifer Orgolini, has been with the company for 13 years, and she is really bright. She’s been here so long that her experience, her tenure and her familiarity with New Belgium made her a perfect candidate for that role. And our controller, Christine Perich, that was a great professional move for her to become chief financial officer. She’s got that classic attention to detail. It’s been a fabulous fit.
It was really very unplanned but fortuitous nonetheless.
Q: Craft beer market share in the U.S. is 4 percent. How big can it reasonably grow?
A: I really think we can be 10 percent of the marketplace, maybe within 10 years, 15 years.
From a consumer perspective, I think we’re seeing a resurgence. People are realizing that this product is flavorful and made by interesting people who are exploring and tinkering with beers.
Edited for space and clarity from an interview by staff writer Steve Raabe.
