HOW NORDHAVN WEATHERED THE STORM
Wow, that wasn't much fun. . . While it will take time to mop up the mess left behind by the most difficult 40 months in our history, for PAE, the recession is over
By dan streech
President, pacific Asian Enterprises
W
hen we gave editor Georgs Kolesnikovs the green light to proceed with this issue of Circumnavigator, several of us received writing assignments. Mine was to describe how PAE survived the economic crisis. The title, as you see it above, came to me immediately, but how to capture it in words alluded me for days. I asked Georgs, “Something along the lines of a glorious story about three brilliant guys who deftly navigated the crisis with perfect foresight, the right decisions, clear thinking, magnificent leadership, boundless bravery and perfect timing?” Nooooooooooo, because it wouldn’t be true. How about this?”A wonderful healthy company pummeled for three years and taken into scary uncharted territory by 28
CIRCUMNAVIGATOR I 2012
the worst sequence of events in our 35-year history, with three owners at times afraid, confused, lethargic and in despair?” Well, closer to the truth, but still not completely accurate and certainly not the way to present this. Besides, nobody wants to see what goes on in the kitchen of their favorite restaurant, and people probably don’t want to know what goes on behind the scenes of their favorite yacht builder during a financial crisis. Simply said, it was a case of buying time, keeping the faith and making the best possible decisions without knowing with certainty what was coming next. As an analogy, I like to compare the experience of PAE to an airliner that loses power at 40,000 feet. Jim Leishman www.circumnavigatormag.com