BusinessWest & Healthcare News: Business & Health Talk Podcast · Audacy

Joe Bednar talks with Delcie Bean, owner of Paragus Strategic I.T.

·20 min·1 clip

Paragus became 100% employee owned just about a month before the interview.

Business Talk opens with Joe Bednar introducing Delcy Bean, CEO of Paragus Strategic IT, and noting that she is being honored as part of Business West’s Difference Makers Class of 2024 on April 10th. The conversation starts with her early path into computers and the way she says she more or less stumbled into the business. She recalls beginning in high school by fixing home computers, then watching that work grow into a storefront and eventually a thousand customers. When she had to choose between shutting it down to go to college or staying with the company, she stayed. From there, the interview turns to how Paragus grew from a repair operation into a broader IT provider. The discussion then shifts to employee ownership. Bean explains the ESOP path as a way to make sure the people doing the work share in the outcome, especially since the company’s work is demanding and not an eight-to-five proposition. Her view is simple: if everyone carries the hard parts, everyone should benefit when the company does well. The conversation also gets into why more CEOs do not choose that model. Bean points first to complexity: ESOPs are not a separate corporate class but a set of rules applied to other corporation types, and that makes them hard to take in at first. She also notes that there are a lot of stereotypes and conflicting answers in the ESOP world, which can put owners off before they really look into it. Her advice is practical: talk to other CEOs who have already done it and gather experience from more than one source. Near the end, Bean broadens the frame again and describes why the work still feels fresh. She talks about a business life that changes every day through growth, acquisitions, hiring, and helping other businesses, with room for learning and development along the way. The episode keeps a steady, civic-minded tone throughout. It stays focused on the operational story and the values underneath it. The result is a clear portrait of a CEO who sees scale and fairness as part of the same question. It also shows how a regional business interview can make ownership structures feel concrete instead of abstract. For listeners, the appeal is in the mix of company history, leadership judgment, and the plain way Bean explains why she chose the path she did. The interview leaves room for the listener to hear both the mechanics of a transition and the motive behind it. It pays close attention to how a business changes when its success is meant to be shared. That makes the episode useful not just as a profile of Paragus, but as a conversation about what responsible growth can look like in practice.

As heard by us

A practical founder story shaped by growth, ownership, and shared outcomes.

Joe Bednar uses his conversation with Delcy Bean to follow the path from a small computer repair start to Paragus Strategic IT, and the best part is how plainspoken it stays.

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Why you'd press play

Hear how a high school computer fixer grew into a business owner who chose shared equity for the people doing the work.

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