A Message From Doug Bellamy, President of Alta Drywall

We've Gone Fishing!

I saw a picture the other day which spoke volumes. Just after a hurricane had ravaged an area, a plantation style house sat submerged in a swamp. The house hadn’t moved. Rather the hurricane had driven flood waters into the area and now it sat like an island surrounded by murky water. A little boy stood staring from the porch. He was wearing a lifejacket as he faced this daunting predicament. But what struck me most was what was in his hand. A fishing pole! He was fishing.

Embodied in that photo I saw innocent courage, child-like trust, the caution of a lifejacket and the search for opportunity. All of this positive and virtuous behavior demonstrated in the bleakest of times. Fishing? Who but a child would ever think of fishing when faced with the chaos and destruction brought on in the aftermath of a hurricane? I’m sure he could easily have whimpered and complained. Nevertheless, he wasn’t. After all, when had he ever had the opportunity or when will he ever have the opportunity again, to catch a fish from his front porch? The lesson is simple. I believe it has an application for all of us. Times are bad, be cautious, it’s a dangerous environment, we’ve been dealt a colossal blow, but whatever you do, however dire your straights, there is always opportunity. Find it!

They say necessity is the mother of invention. Need drives invention: It encourages innovation and fuels progress. It requires us to find the opportunities and figure out new ways to do old things. Sometimes it forces us to take a path and later we realize that it prepared us for something and positioned us in a way that we never expected. At Alta we’ve had one such experience. Facing an economic slowdown like never before, in an industry decimated by catastrophic financial uproar, we’ve started fishing, finding opportunities and we’re almost, if not actually, enjoying ourselves. It’s sort of fun, to strive to be just like that little boy.

What kind of opportunities?

• Refining our operation in a way we would never have the opportunity to, if things were busy
• Eliminating waste with a passion wherever we find it
• Striving to be as innovative and creative as possible to find ways to lower cost to the customer and drive up productivity
• Embracing technology, modernizing methods and morphing ourselves into a 21st century business
• Adding new customers and expanding both geographically and diversifying into other markets, products and services
• Buying a fleet of fuel efficient vehicles
• Taking full advantage of the bountiful surplus of quality workers, to revolutionize our workforce
• Reviewing and updating our entire safety program

So what does any of this have to do with the title? Everything! We’ve gone fishing. We’re fishing, searching for new opportunities. Doing all kinds of things we rarely get the opportunity to do. How about this? We’ve closed our Escondido office, but simultaneously opened 5 new satellite offices and are now completely Virtual. Through networking, partnering and sharing expenses with trades and suppliers we are able to reduce cost to the customer, expand geographically and set up business in areas, once thought to be, beyond our reach.

Slowly but surely over the last three years we have been striving to become more mobile and less tied to bricks and mortar. Our supervision is currently fully equipped with the technology and training has been underway for quite a while now. With today’s technology our server provides Alta field and clerical personnel everything they need, wherever they are, whenever they want. In coming months we will be ready and enabled to basically disconnect ourselves from the office and operate independently without being tethered to any physical location.

With a server, web enabled laptops and blackberries, portable scanners and printers, everything can be anywhere in an instant. This single step of going virtual with shared satellite offices enables us to save all kinds of time, money, travel and meanwhile still keep all the info we’ll ever need right at our fingertips. We’ll have access anywhere to what was formerly only available at our Escondido office. I just can’t get over it. Saves fuel, saves time, saves money, reduces cost to the customer and makes us more competitive. Honestly, I don’t know why it took us this long to figure it out.

So what do we do for those among us who still feel the need for somewhere? If someone needs a meeting spot we’ve got that provided through partnering with suppliers. By using their existing offices at the multiple locations they already have, we reduce our costs as well as expand geographically. Why make the customer pay twice. Isn’t there a glaring need to reduce surplus and waste?

So anyways, times are tough and if you’re not careful you’ll get yourself depressed. But, if you start feeling down, just remind yourself of that little boy. That’s what I do. I just keep thinking about that picture and fishing. I’ve always enjoyed fishing. By the way, I think I just got a nibble. Gotta go for now. Whoa! Got one!

Doug Bellamy, President
Innovative Drywall Systems dba Alta Drywall