Bob Bennett: “I rise to comment with respect to the proposed Lilly Ledbetter legislation, and I bring the perspective of a small…”

“I rise to comment with respect to the proposed Lilly Ledbetter legislation, and I bring the perspective of a small employer, for I have presided over firms with as few as half a dozen employees. I have been fortunate enough to see some of those firms grow to larger firms. Indeed, one firm I joined as the fourth employee in the history of that firm ended up listed on the New York Stock Exchange. So I have seen the travails employers go through as they deal with growth situations and creating jobs. The company with which I was involved grew from the original four employees to a staff of 4,000. One of the challenges that comes with a company that is growing that rapidly and creating that number of jobs is you are always involved with change. You are always involved with uncertainty. It is not the same thing as presiding over a company that has been established for 60 or 70 years and has a degree of stability. Every month is a new adventure, a new challenge, and you are constantly changing your employee base. As new people are hired, the old people sometimes get resentful of the new people and say: We were here at the beginning; why aren't we getting these promotions? And you have to explain to them that the company has changed and we need new talents, we need to bring on board new skills, and, quite frankly, the small group that was with us in the beginning has to be augmented with new people.”