Page 16 - BusinessWest December 21, 2020

Hadley Printing
Continued from page 14
be another cycle where people pull back a little bit,” he told BusinessWest, adding that the best this company,
or any company, can do is find ways to cope and persevere until times improve.
Flashing back to mid-March, a pain- ful exercise for most every business owner in the region, the brothers Dero- siers recounted how their venture hit that proverbial traffic jam.
“When this thing broke back in March, we were doing just great; every- thing was rocking and rolling, and we had a ton of work in here,” said Greg, adding that things changed abruptly and profoundly. “Every time we picked up the phone or answered an e-mail in the second half of March, it was ‘can- cel this,’ or ‘please put this on hold.’ Literally, everything was just getting stopped in its tracks.”
Elaborating, the two said that print jobs of all kinds and sizes were being shelved, and for various reasons. Cost was one of them, obviously, but in the case of the 2020-21 schedule for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, for example, it was a case of need — or lack thereof. Organizers had no idea when they could next stage live con- certs, so there was no need for a sched- ule. And in the case of annual appeals launched by colleges and nonprofits (and there are traditionally many of
those throughout the year), those lead- ing area institutions decided the peak of a pandemic was certainly not the time to be waging such a campaign.
Add it all up, and the phone kept
“It’s like walking on a sidewalk on an icy day. You’re going to be careful where you walk and what you do, as opposed to proceeding as usual. I think 2021 will be that way — like walking on ice.
ringing, and each time it did, the per- son at the other end was canceling an order.
“And Chris and I looked at each other and went, ‘whoa.’ We didn’t know whether to look left or right; we didn’t know what was going on,” he went on, adding that, by late April, relief, in the form of PPP and other measures, had been rolled out with the intention of helping companies like Hadley — and the businesses that form their custom- er base — through what was projected to be eight to 10 weeks of very rough
water.
“We all know now that it wasn’t an
eight- to 10-week problem,” Greg con- tinued, adding that one of the biggest challenges for this company was not knowing if printing would be deemed essential — status that was eventually earned.
“A lot of the printers rallied together to fight and make the case that print- ing was essential,” Greg said. “When the governor initially sent out the guidelines on this, the lines were a little blurred; it didn’t say in black and white whether commercial printing was essential.
“The few orders we did get were communication and mailing pieces focused on how to deal with COVID,” including man from hospitals and other healthcare providers, he went on. “Chris actually sent a letter to Governor Baker explaining why printing wasn’t an essential business.”
From the start, the priorities, the two said, were to be conservative with spending and watch every dime, and do everything they could to hang onto to talented, hard-to-replace printing professionals.
“The difficulty that we have in the manufacturing world is that we have some pretty highly trained people who are very good at what they do,” Greg explained. “Finding these people is very difficult, so we don’t want to let our workforce go. And so, for us, the
last resort was to lay people off or fur- lough them; we hung on for as long as we could before we made any deci- sions like that.”
Fortunately, the company has his- torically been conservative fiscally,
he went on, and had the ability to put money aside and weather a storm of this consequence, although it certainly hasn’t been easy.
“That part has been a blessing, but we need to make that back up,” he went on, adding that the company, which turned some type of corner in September, believes its improved situa- tion is part of a broader pattern within the business community — and society in general — to find ways to cope with the pandemic and not merely cancel or put things off, as was happening in the second and third quarters.
As for 2021, Greg said no one really knows what to expect. He does believe that, because of what businesses went through in 2020, and because they don’t know when ‘normal’ will return, many will remain conservative in their approach — right down to print jobs.
“It’s like walking on a sidewalk on an icy day,” he explained. “You’re going to be careful where you walk and what you do, as opposed to proceeding as usual. I think 2021 will be that way — like walking on ice.” u
George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]
”
We Don’t Care How You Stack Up
The size of your wallet will never drive the quality of your service. MyBanker from Berkshire Bank is free, branchless and a real person.
berkshirebank.com/MyBankers
Banking products are provided by Berkshire Bank: Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender. MyBanker priority service and perks are dependent upon a full financial relationship commitment and may vary per individual. Non-relationship clients may be transferred to a traditional branch service delivery channel. Rev. 12/20
16 DECEMBER 21, 2020
COVID STORIES
BusinessWest