Executive compensation is provided in several forms, usually including base salary, bonus, incentive pay based on hitting performance targets, stock awards, stock options, pension contributions and other miscellaneous categories. Often, the incentives and stock options and awards constitute the largest pieces of a compensation package.
This story by Linda Lipp originally appeared in the Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly.
Publicly traded companies are required to file annual reports/proxy statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission that detail the compensation packages earned by their highest paid executives in the previous year. For calendar 2017 and corresponding fiscal years, those reports included 48 executives spread out among nine companies in the 12-county northeast Indiana region, and eight executives at two companies based in a four-county northwest Ohio region.
The second highest paid executive on this year’s list was Robert Martin, CEO of Thor Industries in Elkhart, Ind. His compensation at the RV manufacturer, which is seeing record production and sales, totaled $13.3 million. That included stock awards of almost $4.4 million and incentive compensation of $8.1 million.
Patrick Industries CEO Todd Cleveland, who turned a company that barely survived the Great Recession into a large, diversified supplier of components for the RV, manufactured housing, industrial and boating markets, was third on the list with $11.9 million. Jason Lippert, CEO of LCI Industries, another Elkhart-based RV supplier, was fourth with compensation of about $10.3 million.
Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish was the highest paid CEO in Indiana, with total compensation of $18.5 million. Cummins CEO N.T. Linebarger was second, with compensation of $16 million.