CEO
I think it was a great 20th Anniversary Celebration this past weekend. I want to thank everyone that was able to attend and I hope you all had as wonderful of a time as I did. It was a little bittersweet for me celebrating such an important milestone in my life and the life of the company, but having to do it without my biggest cheerleader by my side. Also, I always try to make time to sit and visit with every Champion that attends our annual parties, but as usual I’m certain that I missed a handful of you this time. I promise to try to visit with you next time.
As I mentioned that night, we’ve tried to recap the growth and progress of the company in a couple of newsletters so far, the December 2020 issue for 20 Years and the November 2015 issue for 15 Years. I believe both issues paint a really good picture of our progress as a company, so if you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to check them out for some history of the company. At a bare minimum, hopefully you’ll checkout our Resilience and Growth Timeline and our Employee Development Timeline.
For those of you who were unable to attend the celebration, I want to share this short video that I played that evening touching some of my thoughts on Champion’s success and expressing my gratitude to all Champions, both past and present. And like I mentioned that evening, please remember that we take professional headshot photos at every Christmas party, so if the last photo we have of you is from when you hired on, please come join us this December and have an updated one taken.
There’s much more praise that I could share about so many of you, but please know that I appreciate everyone of you deeply and thank you each for being a part of the Champion team.
On a separate note, as we prepare to return to the offices, I wanted to share my experience with the vaccination. I recently received my second COVID-19 vaccination shot and am officially now fully vaccinated. While I admit it felt like I got punched in the arm both times by somebody with Brad’s strength, the second time felt like it was with a much smaller fist. I’ve heard all kinds of different experiences from aches and pains, redness and fever, and general tiredness, and while I make no assumptions or predictions on how it may affect anyone, I will say that unless you have a true medical reason to avoid it or religious beliefs against vaccines, I encourage you to bear the pain and/or discomfort of getting the vaccine in order to move us forward into the future. Ending the COVID-19 pandemic will end the negative impact it has had on education, the economy, health care, and countless other activities of a functioning society. If you haven’t already done so, please consider doing your part.
Thank You,
