We Will Not Participate in the Recession!
“We will not participate in the recession!”
Those words were spoken by Tom Edwards, the president of Ruskin Air and Sound Control, a fifty year-old, Kansas City-based company at whose annual sales meeting I was recently asked to speak. While my topic was, of course, Stopwatch Marketing, I couldn’t help but be blown away by the actual work of this meeting – and of this special company. Consider:
- They manufacture – and successfully market – traditional, industrial HVAC products such as Air Measuring Products and Industrial Dampers:
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Much of this manufacturing takes place in North America
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They are completing a record year
- Ruskin has added enormous amounts of new materials and electronics technology to their systems to improve energy efficiency and improve control and diagnostics of system performance
- They employ 3,300 people around the world
- They plan to continue investing heavily in people, technology, and marketing to make sure that they not only “refuse to participate in the recession,” but come out the other end of it poised to unmercifully exploit the infrastructure boom sparked by the Stimulus Plan
It was, indeed, a pleasure to be with these guys for a couple of days. “These guys” includes their independent reps, consulting engineers, architects, etc. from around the world. Not once did I hear words like “survival,” or “scary” when they referred to current business conditions. This was as can-do a crowd as I’ve been with for a while. It was also a pleasure to talk with them about their vision for the future of their industry – this is a group that is actually doing something to radically reduce energy use AND save lives (that’s what they do…air handling, energy transfer, smoke and fire protection, etc.), as well as producing ever more effective and intelligent systems for the buildings we all take for granted. And, to repeat, they do it by engineering and bending metal in North America, not financially engineering subprime mortgages, outsourcing call centers overseas, or importing videogames.
Their website is worth looking into, if for no other reason to enjoy, as I did, the simplicity with which they communicate their vision and their reverence for the performance of their products. If you wish to participate – as I do – in their future prosperity, check out the stock of their corporate parent, Tomkins PLC (TKS).
Finally, our periodic quiz: Which of the following is their president, Tom Edwards, which is AnnaMaria, and which is me?
