PASSION AND INTUITION Needless to say that promise created excruciating pressure during the darkest days—and our appreciation for those orders will remain forever. By the end of 2011, the many cuts to overhead as well as the natural cost savings that came with reduced revenue had brought our revenue/profit/overhead figures back into the healthy zone. We were a smaller, leaner and healthier company and in a position to sustain the battle indefinitely. A turning point came in early 2012 when projections showed the probability of a meager profit for year-end 2012. The breakthrough, however, occurred in the spring of 2012: Over 20 new, used and trade-in Nordhavns were sold by PAE in a 90-day period, far exceeding the sales requirements of our earlier projections. While it will take months and in some cases years to mop up the mess left behind by the worst 40 months of our history, for PAE, the recession is over. Lessons learned? I can’t really answer that question—yet. I think that we are still too close to it, still in shock and affected too much, to make a sweeping and profound statement. Maybe Georgs will ask me to reflect on that subject in the next Circumnavigator. Maybe the perspective of time will help me articulate it. Right now, I can only say, “Wow, that wasn’t much fun!” V
We have had the fun and good fortune to meet many interesting people at PAE over the years including rock stars, famous actors, race drivers, politicians and captains of industry. Many have become friends. We met with and sought the advice of several powerful, brilliant and important business people to get their take and advice on how PAE should deal with the recession. Simply said, I am glad that we didn’t take their advice. Nearly everyone that we talked to called for cuts, reductions, abandonments and retrenchment much greater and much earlier than what we did. Their advice was “perfect” and probably correct in every way—but it wasn’t right for PAE. What they didn’t have and didn’t understand was our passion and commitment that gave us ambition to “fight on” when a pure “corporate” attitude would have been to cut and run.
THE FAT ELK I am always fascinated by nature programs that show how animals survive during the winter. They graze and eat and put on weight and store energy all summer and fall. During the long winter, they live on that stored energy. If they were skinny in September, they were dead in March. PAE was fat in September 2008 . . . you can finish this paragraph yourself . . .
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“World Leader in Performance and Reliability for 116 years” www.nordhavn.com
2012 I CIRCUMNAVIGATOR
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