Each year, ASA members compete for the award by submitting an application and their prior year’s incident rate (300A form). Thank you to all those that participated in the ASA Safety Award competition, and to all those who help form ASA's safety culture and education through volunteerism, and support through such efforts as its Safety Recognition Program.
The end of a year is always a good time to reflect and plan for the year ahead, and this is especially true when that year (or two) has been particularly challenging. When reflecting on my last year, one stand-out moment was getting to hear Shark Tank’s Daymond John speak at ASA’s NETWORK conference in Las Vegas this November.
Congressman Smucker toured the new distribution facility and was one of the first to see APR’s latest implementation of warehouse automation. While on site, Congressman Smucker took time to address the APR warehouse 1st shift teammates, along with the corporate and leadership teams.
It is pretty rare to see a private, family-owned company reach fourth-generation leadership, much less fifth. For more than a century — 120 years to be exact — the Dowd family has led Charlotte, North Carolina-based pipe and fitting manufacturer Charlotte Pipe and Foundry. Built by W. Frank Dowd in 1901, the original foundry in Charlotte employed 25 men and produced cast iron soil pipe and fittings.
Culture seems to be all the rage in the corporate world today, or maybe that’s just because I read a lot about it, and because we really focus on it being real. At Eastern, we have a healthy desire to have a positive impact on the lives of people we come in contact with. One of the ways we foster this is through our 28 Fundamentals, or as we call it, The Eastern Way.
Net sales of $6,803 million were 26.6% ahead of last year, 24.5% higher on an organic basis with 1.8% from acquisitions and a further 0.3% from the impact of foreign exchange. Inflation in the first quarter was in the low teens.
After enduring a unique set of challenges through 2020 and 2021, industry experts are excited to move forward into another high-demand year. The excitement is coupled with caution, as supply chain constraints, material pricing and labor shortages are not expected to resolve themselves in the near future.
ASA’s monthly sales report shows October 2021 results that reflect another month of robust performance compared to the same month a year ago. Year-to-date and trailing-twelve-month figures remained strong when compared against 2020, a year that had multiple weeks, if not months of closures or partial closures.
As another year comes to a close, I cannot help but to look back and reflect on how resilient and successful our association was during another year of disruption. For a second straight year, our world struggled with a worldwide pandemic and unprecedented supply chain disruption. But one thing remains constant. Our association and our dedicated volunteer leaders continue to be the voice of hope for a stronger future for our industry.