MRO Today - Thy brother's keeper

Thy brother’s keeper

by Tom Hammel, editor

You may not have noticed, but there’s a slump in the economy going on, right now in fact. There are lots of indicators but we won’t go into them here. Just take our word for it — times are tough.

More important than the symptoms of the illness, and there are many, from raw material and energy costs to consumer confidence and job cuts, is what companies are doing to keep their heads above water (some literally), keep the doors open and employees employed.

We thought it was high time to take a look and we didn’t have to look far. We could have looked down the street, but we picked a company about 40 miles from our offices that fits the bill perfectly.
Associate Engineering Corporation (population: 62) has called Hustisford, Wisconsin (population: 1,152) home since 1959. Don’t know the name? Maybe you know the brand: Rolair Systems air compressors.

Rolair builds air compressors for the construction market, nothing else. That fact alone should give you an idea how they felt when the housing market crashed. And they have lots of company to share the misery — thousands of contractors and hundreds of distributors.

The irony of this story is that Rolair’s close ties to the construction market are turning out to be among its best weapons against the downturn.

Determined prospecting, heavy reliance on long-standing relationships and the classic American willingness to lend a helping hand have become powerful tools for Rolair. The company is using this crisis to reach out to customers, to let them know Rolair is there for them, to reinforce existing relationships and build new ones that will catapult the company out of recession as soon as recovery begins.

It’s a short, simple story with common-sense lessons that have great meaning for our present times. We encourage you to read it. Perhaps it will have some value for you, too.