CH2M Hill is Colorado’s largest private company, but it reports its financial information as if it were public.
When it comes to executive pay, the Douglas County firm also pays its executives as if it were public.
The top five executives at the engineering and design company made an average of $3 million in pay last year, led by $5.1 million in compensation for CEO and president Lee McIntire.
“Our philosophy is a performance-based compensation philosophy,” said spokesman John Corsi. The firm looks at what its peers are paying and how they are performing and sets appropriate benchmarks, he added.
The company’s shareholders are employees, and the lack of a highly liquid stock creates a different emphasis.
Rather than relying heavily on stock and option grants, more compensation comes in cash. About 48 percent of McIntire’s pay, for example, came in salary and bonus versus an average of 16 percent for executives at Colorado public companies.
Aldo Svaldi, The Denver Post
