Page 52 - BusinessWest September 14 2020

Signs turns — and, Continued from page 37 yes, even a
pandemic — by broadening and diversifying the portfolio of clients
and creating a culture grounded in the flexibility and nimbleness noted earlier.
Which brings us back to March, and the arrival of COVID-19.
“We had some really good things moving in the right direction right at the beginning of the year,” John said. “We had a good winter, things were lining up well, and we were really excited about this year.
“But when COVID hit, it hit with a jolt,” he went on. “We weren’t certain what was going to happen or how we were going about things, but if there’s one thing that my brother and I believe in — pre-COVID, during COVID, or post-COVID — it’s that, the more flexible you are as a business, the more successful you can make yourself. And what we found is that, due to our flexibility with working with our supply chain and working with our clients, we were able to manage this crisis effectively.
One of the best examples of this flexibility was the company’s ability to pivot and begin making the plexiglass shields now seen in restaurants, banks, retail outlets, and countless other businesses.
“We reached out to suppliers and started order- ing clear acrylic, clear polycarbonate, and started making these custom guards that could be adapted for bank-teller lanes, tabletops, and other uses,” Dan explained, noting that GIS made this adjustment
as a way to bring employees back to work after the pandemic hit and sign work ground to a near-halt. “There was a little bit of a learning curve, but overall, it was an almost seamless transition.”
John agreed, noting that the company didn’t have to make any additional investments or find any new suppliers.
“It was just a matter of quickly training employees to make shields instead of signage,” he said, noting that, while GIS is still making these shields for a few hospitals and office buildings, it is increasingly turn- ing its focus back to making signs.
A Bright Future
While many sectors of the economy have slowed because of the pandemic, there are still growth opportunities for companies positioned to take advantage of them, said John, noting that banks, with the emergence of the ITM, clearly represent one of those opportunities.
He noted that banks were already moving in this direction, and the pandemic, which closed bank lob- bies for months and all but forced customers to use drive-up windows for most all transactions, has only accelerated the process.
“Banks are adding them at their branches, and we’ve also seen an increase in free-standing ITMs that are not at branches,” he explained. “Chase Bank is the first one to do this; they’re looking to close 1,000 loca- tions — downtown locations that don’t have drive-up
service — and buy remote sites just outside cities, and put up these free-standing ITMs.
“We’re one of the few companies in the United States building these free-standing ITM canopies,” he went on. “It’s a very interesting development and a great opportunity for us, and we saw it happening pre-COVID; it’s 100% the future.”
As for the future of the sign business ... that pic- ture is certainly not as clear, said the brothers Renzi, noting, again, that the pandemic has hit this sector very hard, and there was already a good deal of con- solidation before COVID-19 arrived as Baby Boomers retired and sold their ventures to employees or larger players from outside the region.
And since the pandemic, some of the smaller players have closed down, they said, noting they didn’t have the wherewithal to withstand the loss of business and the many other challenges that visited the industry. And many mid-sized companies have struggled with everything from retaining employees to finding the materials they need to complete orders.
GIS, again, is not immune from these challenges, but it certainly seems well-positioned to not only sur- vive but thrive in the post-COVID world.
If you look closely — and you don’t even have to look closely — you can see the signs.u
George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]
from Connecticut and New York. Sec- ond homeowners have been living here since March, making their Berkshire residence more permanent during the pandemic. All those dollars circulate back into the local economy, which is a good thing.”
Any forward momentum is wel- come, Paleologos added. But so much still remains in flux.
“We can’t guarantee, by the time
we get to next summer, we’ll be in a situation where we’ll be able to have shows indoors again,” he said. “The good news is, having had this experi- ence, being able to find a way to do it outdoors, maybe we could incorpo- rate a hybrid model, under tents and indoors. A lot is up in the air at this point, depending on how fast a reliable vaccine comes on the market and how much public confidence there is at its safety and efficacy.”
He noted that the theater business goes back to an amphitheater cut into the hillside at the Parthenon 2,500 years ago — and likely before that.
“From then up to now, the bed- rock of our business is people com- ing together in a single place to have
a shared experience and to learn a little bit about what it is to be a human being,” he said. “That’s what we do.”
That’s what the Berkshires do, too, bringing people together every year for an array of activities, many of which have been curtailed in this year of COVID-19.
But the show will go on, eventually — with or without plexiglass. u
Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]
Tourism
Continued from page 39
their model — some hotels have a three-night minimum because of the cleaning expenses of turning over a room, and some businesses are closed a day or two a week to focus on clean- ing and sanitizing.”
Last week, Main Street Hospitality Group, which operates several hotels in the region, announced the hir-
ing of a COVID compliance officer,
or CCO, who makes monthly visits to each hotel for routine inspections and engagement with staff and leadership. A board-certified physician, the offi- cer strictly adheres to mandates from the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and stays informed on the latest public-health advancements in order to advise on any necessary changes to the hotels’ protocols and procedures.
“In addition to several months of strategic planning that led to our ini- tial creation of safeguards, it is equally important to continue evaluating our health and safety practices with the CCO’s help and expertise,” said Sarah Eustis, Main Street’s CEO. “A trusted editor was needed to process the ever- changing breadth of information out there.”
Meanwhile, the hotel group has also partnered with Blue Canary, a company that trains hotels in hospital- level cleaning methods and conducts regular check-ins. Main Street’s house- keeping leaders participated in three days of intensive sessions that focused on best practices and heightened awareness. Attendants were trained in techniques that include longer clean-
ing times,
cleaning tools, and identifying critical, high-touch areas that require the most attention to ensure guest health and safety.
“This new reality has impacted our housekeeping teams in a huge way,” Eustis said. “Main Street Hospitality is committed to staying at the forefront of this.”
Restaurants have had barriers to overcome as well, Butler said, especial- ly those that depend on visitor traffic at other area attractions. “Some have been able to pivot and focus on a deliv- ery and takeout model, while others haven’t made the transition as seam- lessly, and many don’t have the square footage inside to sit too many, and if they’re not able to adapt some outdoor seats, it can be challenging.”
The soon-to-arrive colder weather will force many eateries to become more creative until the state lifts restrictions on indoor capacity — and patrons feel safe enough to eat indoors.
“We certainly understand some businesses will have to make more per- manent decisions about their fate. And some businesses, unfortunately, won’t make it to the other side of this,” Butler said. “But the outdoor recreation scene has been very busy — it’s flourishing this summer, and that will continue into the fall.”
Lessons Learned
Paleologos told BusinessWest that banks did a good job easing loan terms for cultural organizations and other nonprofits in the spring, and argues that the next step would be a perma-
nent shift in that direction. Writing this month in Berkshire
Trade & Commerce, he cited a study in Berkshire Blueprint 2.0, an economic- development plan for Berkshire Coun- ty, showing that jobs in the creative industry grew at a faster pace than in any of the other sectors examined.
“In other words, cultural nonprofits are absolutely central to the Berkshire brand,” he wrote. “The profitability of other commercial industries depends heavily on the success of this county’s theatres, museums, music, and dance companies. Creating new and innova- tive financial products that contribute to the long-term sustainability of the nonprofit sector must become a top priority for local banks. As an example, sufficiently collateralized operating loans to nonprofits must be offered
at the most favorable rates — not the least.”
Meanwhile, Butler added, bringing visitor traffic back to 2019 levels will depend largely on people’s confidence regarding safety, and the public-health metrics on that front have been very good in the Berkshires. “We’re optimis- tic that will continue and we’ll come out in a stronger place at the end of this.”
That said, there certainly has been a visitor footprint in the Berkshires this year, he went on.
“We won’t have hard data until 2021, and I’m certain it’s going to be down — we don’t have a lot of the key economic drivers, like Jacob’s Pillow and Tanglewood. But on the plus side, we’ve seen a lot of visitation from East- ern Mass.; they see us as the rural side of the state. We’ve had a lot of visitors
stronger disinfectants, new
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