May 2022
Hello everyone,
It’s newsletter time again! Well, we have good news and bad news. The good news is our sales have been just absolutely through the roof. The sales to date have been 160% of projection almost to the point where we’ve met our half year goal already. The sales have driven our backlog up to an all-time high, almost double that of last year at this time. That’s good news and bad news at the same time. It’s good and comforting to have backlog. It gives us confidence to be able to make investments in new people, new product, new solutions. However, it’s bad to have backlog where customers are waiting for new systems and we’re not able to deliver because we don’t have product. And to be clear, it’s not that we don’t have any product. We are still getting delivery of most products, but we’re missing key components for some systems, leaving us in a position to not being able to finish some installations. The component shortage is real, and it has affected the supply chain at a rate never thought possible. Attached is a link to a newsletter produced by Michelle Allen, business manager for Ametek owned Rauland, our nurse call product partner. This letter gives you a first-hand view of the things Rauland is facing right now. They’re working hard to fix the problems by redesigning equipment to use chips that are more available. But that takes time to design, make new circuit boards, and submit and get approval of UL (Underwriters Laboratory) and FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) as well. It will probably be a year before we’re back to shipping as normal. Michelle Allen letter.
The bad news is, because of the shortage of critical equipment, we were not able to make our revenue projections for the first quarter. This left us in a position of not making a profit to the level needed to have profit sharing. It’s unfortunate, but on the bright side, the profits will come in time. With the backlog we have, it’s just going to come much later than we’d hoped. If we can get deliveries of product in the next couple of months, we might be able to make up for the first part of the year in the second or third quarter. Our next opportunity for a distribution is July. No guarantees until we can begin a steady flow of material to finish these jobs.
Retirement. Joe Jackson, Director of sales in Grand Prairie, retired April 29. We had a sendoff dinner for him Wednesday where we told him how we appreciated him and presented him with an award for his time at Lone Star communications. Joe was a great asset to the company coming at a very important time in 2010, right at the peak of the financial crisis. He helped guide Lone Star through a critical change in direction from education centric to healthcare centric and has been a great leader in the time that he was at Lone Star. We will miss Joe and we wish him a great success in the next chapter of his life. Joe, again, thank you for everything you’ve done for Lone Star. You will be missed.
Promotions. First, I want to acknowledge the change of position of Lasonia Reed. Lasonia has been promoted to the role of education designer from her previous role as a CAD Operator. Lasonia has been with Lone Star for more than 7 years and has proven that she is worthy of this promotion. Lasonia also leads the Special Event Committee (SEC) in Grand Prairie where she makes sure everyone is recognized on their birthday, anniversary, and other special days. The announcement of her promotion was inadvertently delayed and should have been a part of the announcements when we announced the other changes taking place. Congratulations and thank you Lasonia for your commitment to Lone Star and your commitment to continual learning. You are a shining example to Lone Star employees.
Director of Regional Sales, Grand Prairie. As Joe Jackson retires, it’s creating an opportunity for Michael Lee to move into the Director of regional sales, LSGP. Michael has been with the company almost 20 years now and he’s proven himself as an excellent salesperson and a leader within the organization. Michael will be assuming the role immediately and will work with Chief Operating Officer Dan Hiett to become an integral member of the Grand Prairie leadership team. Please join me in congratulating Michael Lee on his well-deserved promotion.
Town Hall. We have committed to ourselves that we will get into a routine of eleven Town Hall meetings per year. Four of those meetings will be a company update with the discussion primarily led by me. The others will be guest presenters covering a subject of interest to our employees. Please take a moment to send an email to Dakota Stowe in the Grand Prairie office regarding any subjects you have an interest in being discussed and we will get it into the schedule. We have a few items already selected that will be covered such as an overview with specific examples of the salary research we are doing. This has been a monumental task pulling job descriptions from the 3rd party resource, carefully matching as closely as possible with the LSC job descriptions and regional comparisons, and now planning for any adjustments that may need to be made to salary rates. The process is close to completion, and once we have fully verified our findings, we will be sharing them with you. Another meeting will cover a discussion and overview of Professional Services and what we expect will be the outcome of the new division. We will do a meeting about the TechStar app and what benefits we have received from it and how to use it to get the most out of it. There are more subjects in the plans but let us hear what you think. We are planning to have these meetings the first Thursday of each month at 2:30 PM. The first Town Hall with a guest speaker will be June 2 at 2:30 PM.
Here are the other dates planned:
June 2, 2022 | Guest Town Hall |
July 7, 2022 | Guest Town Hall |
August 4, 2022 | Company Town Hall |
September 8, 2022 | Guest Town Hall |
October 6, 2022 | Guest Town Hall |
November 3, 2022 | Company Town Hall |
December 8, 2022 | Guest Town Hall |
January 5, 2023 | Guest Town Hall |
There will be more about the Town Hall in a separate invitation later in the month.
That’s all for now. Thank you to all that have been working so hard to keep our projects moving and our customers happy.
Until next time, Ray
- Ray Bailey, President