Many of us are just trying to ride out the COVID pandemic. We stay hunkered down in our houses, where we’ve been for months, fighting coronaboredom and hoping that, one of these days, we’ll get back to a semblance of pre-pandemic normalcy.
Other people are different. They aren’t happy about COVID-19, obviously, but where we experience only apathy they see opportunity and are willing to creatively embrace the many challenges presented by doing business in a pandemic. If you’ve read about some of the innovative ideas that business owners have come up with–like bars that have developed ways to accomplish virtual bar crawls, or businesses that have retooled to provide supplies needed in battling the coronavirus–you know what I mean.
One of those people who is looking for opportunity, even now, is my long-time friend Chuck Pisciotta, who is seen at left in the picture above. Chuck went ahead with a plan he devised to assemble investors and buy manufacturing businesses, even after a pandemic intervened. He’s formed a new company called Valence Industrial and hopes to realize synergies and efficiencies by combining the former standalone businesses, investing in technology, and presenting customers with an integrated business model, and he’s got his eye on Valence being well-positioned when the post-pandemic rebound occurs. He recognizes that some people might wonder about the wisdom of that decision to invest in manufacturing during these unprecedented times and has written an interesting article about his thinking that you can read here.
How will it work out? No one can predict the future, but knowing Chuck I am confident that no one will be more thoughtful, or more hard working, in striving to make his business plan a successful reality. And I also know this: thank goodness for people like Chuck, who have foresight and business savvy and are willing to take risks. They are the entrepreneurs who make our economy work, and create the jobs that employ and benefit the rest of us. We could use a lot more of them.
Webner House 