As I sit back and think about the year, the first thing that always pops into my mind is the good people in this business. Our personal commitment, our passion for our customers, and our family spirit are intact. I am fortunate to share so many great experiences with all of you.  It was terrific to be visible in the market and to be able to spend more time with a lot of you than we did in the two previous years. Whether it was at ISA, IMTS, other industry meetings, or personal visits, I relished them all. That time we share is irreplaceable to me. 

I acknowledge that 2022 was a challenging year. There were plenty of disturbances both externally and self-inflicted. Obviously, we cannot control outside influences in our business, but we navigated through our distribution center consolidation and supply issues that certainly impacted you and your customers. That to me was the toughest challenge. While we wished that we could have done things differently, we did learn a lot of lessons that will give us experience. Through that, I am proud that we were able to stick together, communicate, and work through the issues.

Together we identified areas for future improvement. With local stock being one, part of the above issue, adding Frank Medford to the team helped us move our logistics in the right direction. His impact on that initiative has exceeded expectations, and we are just scratching the surface. We also identified product launch and innovation as a process that needs to be shored up. We have made an investment and added a resource to the channel team that will help us quarterback the activity. It is not a flip the switch activity, but we are making baby steps in the right direction. We worked on the structure of the organization to ensure we are working on the important things that will allow us to support your businesses and grow our market share together. We are looking to add another resource to the team first quarter of 2023.

I want to thank you all for your continued business, support, guidance, and friendships in 2022.  I know that we will fight for each other in 2023. I look forward to strengthening our relationship.