Hi everybody. It’s a cloudy, dreary Friday and the day after our company holiday party. What a perfect time to share thoughts about another year coming to an end and all the promise and inevitable challenges of a new one.

2015 has been a very good year for Abel Womack. We will have record revenues of about $95M, up double digits for the second year in a row, and good, not great profitability. Our sound performance is attributable to the same few things- ones that we should never take for granted.

1. The people in this company rock. They just ‘get it’- that this company is on a mission, that hard work is necessary for success, that taking care of our customers is our first priority and that taking care of each and those less fortunate isn’t far behind.
2. Our customers, like us, appreciate what we do for them. Trust may be the greatest business catalyst there is and because of our people and our obsession with always doing the right thing (even when no one is looking), our customers trust us and want to do business with us. That is huge and must never be underestimated or compromised.
3. We have wonderful suppliers; the kind of organizations and people that foster great relationships and a passion for performance.
4. Even though the Northeast is a mature, slow growth and expensive part of the country, it still has game. From Portland to Boston to New York- it has an undeniable Esprit de Coeur. Sure we’d like to have more prolific growth in this area, but then we wouldn’t be who we are and maybe, just maybe, we’d start taking success for granted. That’s a sure recipe for eventual disaster and we kind of like the hard scrabble personality this company has as a result of having to really work to achieve our goals.

On to 2016- a bright, shiny new year. If the world doesn’t get any more insane than it already has, it should be a good one- one in which we finally hit that elusive $100M mark. The economy continues to grind higher and capex seems to be picking up even faster than the general economy, probably because business confidence is finally in place. That bodes well for people in the capital equipment business, particularly those of us who sell automation and technologies that improve operational efficiencies and reduce the need for direct labor. We are already down to less than 5% unemployment and finding good workers is going to get even harder than it already is.

We as a company feel real good about what we can control, i.e. being who we are and doing what we do. So, we all need to hope and pray that the crazies don’t disrupt our fragile environment. It’s sad to think it’s gotten to this point- one in which you can’t think about a new year without thinking about not whether but how much terrorism will affect our lives. What a shame…yet, it will all be OK in the end. It simply has to be- doesn’t it?