AN OPEN LETTER TO OUR VALUED DEALERS

Dear Valued Spanco dealer,

It seems that every generation has their challenges: The Great Depression, the World Wars, 9/11, and now the COVID-19 pandemic. Like all the struggles of the past, we will one day overcome this, too. In late February I took a vacation in Rio de Janeiro to enjoy Carnaval and was out of the news loop for about ten days. At that time, nobody there was talking about this novel Coronavirus, so I was perplexed when I returned in March to hear everyone talking about it non-stop.

It is amazing how much our lives can change so suddenly. It is a good lesson to learn about how fragile life is and how delicate the economy is; moreover, there is an equally valuable lesson to be learned about the ingenuity, creativity, and resilience of the human spirit and the will to overcome when faced with adversity. We have seen that first-hand at our own company, with our suppliers, and most importantly, in our dealer network.

Anticipating the changes that were about to come, the Spanco management team sprang into action and started planning to work remotely. We briefly shut down the Pennsylvania plant, but since then we have stayed open and shipped orders on-time throughout the crisis. Our factory workers follow the CDC guidelines by using masks, gloves, and social distancing. Spanco is deemed an essential business, and our products are vital to the functioning of many sectors of the economy that are battling the pandemic. Like many companies these days, our staff is working from home, but there has been no drop off in the level of service or productivity. This is a testament to the reliable, high-quality employees we have, as well as the value of our decision to conduct extensive cross-training years ago. Our IT department has also been superb in providing us the tools we need to work efficiently from home.

Over the past few months, we have intensified our work on many projects that we otherwise would not have had time to do, and we expect to launch multiple products and services over the summer. In addition to these strategic projects, we also conducted multiple online webinars and produced several new self-paced online training courses in lieu of our in-person Spanco Academy classes.

It is gratifying to see the return to more-or-less normal sales levels in June after two volatile sales months during the height of the pandemic. No one can predict the future, but we at Spanco are optimistic that the recovery will hold during the coming months and years. Spanco did not have layoffs or furloughs during this time, and we are here and ready to help you with all your material handling and fall protection needs.

As Vice President of Sales, and on behalf of our sales teams and entire company, I would like to thank each and every dealer who stood by us and has kept their businesses open to serve this country just as we have. We are blessed to have such a loyal and supportive dealer network.

Whether as people or as a company, the challenging times do not make you who you are—they reveal who you are. Years from now, or hopefully sooner, we will look back on these days and remember how we pulled together and came out of this pandemic better, faster, and stronger.

Sincerely,

Jeff Brazwell

VP Sales