Seth Good, Vice President and Sales Director – Frank Good Builders
“Any kind of pandemic or any kind of natural disaster, there are always certain companies that are going to benefit from it. Our company will benefit from everything that’s going on. We were really busy before, but it does seem that it’s made us more busy. I think people have more time on their hands than they ever had before and if they’re going to do this, let’s do it now – if it’s building, if it’s renovating, if it’s getting a home equity line of credit on their home. I’m very thankful that we haven’t been affected in a negative way. With that being the case, we also have the responsibility to give back to the community and help people who didn’t fare too well. That is a fourth quarter goal – to try and figure out what our community outreach is going to be.”
Steve O’Shea – VP of Sales and Marketing – Maax Spas.
“Because families are having to stay home, people are not travelling, not going on vacation; they’re not going to concerts; they’re not going out to eat as much; they’re not going to parks as much. People are congregating more at home; families are looking for more reasons to keep their family at home; more reasons to have their family visit them. During that time frame – April, May, and June – our sales went through the roof. We were one of the few hot tub manufacturers in the world that were open. We have had record days, record weeks, record months, and we have, in essence, 150 percent of a normal year’s worth of production on back order, at the moment. In 2021, we will build more hot tubs than this company has ever built before. There’s not a spa that we will build next year that won’t be delivered to a consumer’s backyard.”
Max Villaronga – President & CEO – El Paso Area Teachers Federal Credit Union
“From the standpoint of our position as a real community partner, we felt that now, more than ever, because these are difficult times, leaders can’t hide. We need to stay connected to the outside world, and to our community, in particular. So, we have stayed involved in a variety of different things that support frontline medical staff at local hospitals, providing them with meals; we’ve done some initiatives in providing healthy living and wellbeing with local organizations; we partnered with the local YWCA as a title sponsor of the Race Against Racism; we took a very public stance on the social justice movement; we provided scholarships to the Young Black Leader Society at the University of Texas, El Paso in order to support diversity, among other things. Whenever there’s adversity, it’s an opportunity for organizations to continue to lead and not retreat into their ivory towers or their safe space.”
Greg Lillegard – COO – A & D Instruments
“We produce blood pressure monitors that the Veterans Administration use in what we believe to be the world’s largest telehealth program; we also sell our product to companies that focus on providing telehealth to employers. We are in the process of updating our blood pressure monitor portfolio because of the explosive growth triggered by the pandemic. And I don’t see telehealth receding. Once you’ve made the leap and you’ve set up your system that’s working, there’s no need to go back. And the benefits of telehealth are so great that no one’s going to say, ‘That’s got us through the period of COVID-19, but now that it’s over I can make my elderly patients drive to a clinic so I can take their blood pressure.’ So, our medical business, due to this telehealth opportunity, has seen growth through these otherwise dark times. It’s been a silver lining in a very dark cloud.”
Paul Williams, Managing Director, Complete Development Solutions Ltd (Kingston, Jamaica)
“The unexpected positive we’ve realized is that most businesses will have to retool and reset, which provides a lot of opportunities for development in different ways. In the construction industry, it is for us, as practitioners, to start preparing ourselves to capitalize on the opportunities that will come in 2021 and 2022 to this industry.”
Chris Premock, Managing Director, Bahamas Builders & Development (Nassau, Bahamas)
“During October, our office has seen a lot more activity with future work. So, I feel that people are still gung-ho and ready to move on to their projects and invest – which is great. It’s what the economy needs, worldwide. Instead of people clamming up and taking the “hold on and wait” routine, they’re pushing forward a little harder than they were six months ago. And I think we’re all coming out of this knowing we can get through it if we all stick together, be responsible, protect ourselves, and know that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Patrick Chouinard, President & CEO, Element5 (Toronto, Canada)
“As a result of COVID-19, we’ve begun to reconnect as human beings. When you see countries coming together to help each other overcome the problem, I’m envisioning that the impact of COVID going forward is it will bring us back to humanity, where we value life and each other and try to work together towards common goals. I was pleasantly surprised when, in the heart of the first wave, you saw people in Italy opening windows and blaring music into the streets and singing from the rooftops. And I’m hoping that COVID has been an incentive for us all to come together better than we had been previously – that there will be a renaissance in music, and arts, and culture as a result.”
