Reflecting on 2020
AUTHOR:
Arthur Dodge, III, President & CEO of Ecore
As the year draws to a close, I sit here trying to collect my thoughts and sum up this past year. The year started off like most this past decade, full of energy and promise, some uncertainty about the upcoming Presidential election and the future of the economy, but nothing that gave you the feeling that everything was about to dramatically change. Business was strong, unemployment bouncing along at historic lows and virtually anyone you spoke with was cautiously optimistic about the future.
Like most of you, I clearly recall hearing stories about a novel virus emanating from China that had taken hold in a few places like Northern Italy. I was in New York City in early March with my two new Commonwealth partners making the rounds visiting some of the notable financial houses promoting Ecore and explaining how an investment in Ecore would help countless lives and create a better world. Like a lightning bolt, the 12th of March hit, the NBA announced that it was canceling the season and the world came to a screeching halt. Bam. Everything literally stopped. No one knew what was coming next! And there was more. Plenty more. The unconscionable killing of George Floyd, devastating fires in Australia and American West and 1000’s of deaths everyday from a disease without a cure.
In retrospect, this is almost always how society gets shocked back into the realization that everything does not always go like it’s supposed to. Sometimes, there’s not a happy ending and plans get set aside. Whether it was 9/11, Katrina or the Great Financial Crisis a decade ago, it just seems that every 10 to 20 years there is an unexpected event that forces us to take a “time-out” demanding that we help one another get back on our feet. A reawakening to a reality that unbridled optimism alone cannot prevent a natural or manmade disaster. As the victim of a life-threatening accident myself, I can assure you that ending up in the ICU was not a remote possibility when I woke up that fateful morning.
Tragedies, crises, and hardships are painful to endure and will cause unintended suffering for many. But after helping the injured and those in need, these are also times to remember that life and the world as we knew it will recover and be restored. There is great strength in the quiet knowledge that we have the capacity to heal, as people, as a community, as a company and as a nation. And it is the promise of renewal, of growth and the freedom to test our limits and push the boundaries of our unlimited potential that I want to focus on as we bring 2020 to a close.
Ecore is a magical place. It is a unique community of inspired individuals from all walks of life and all corners of the globe. It is a place where we transform the unwanted into the much desired. It is a place where we help one another through adversity and loss and emerge with new-found optimism and an unbridled capacity to learn, to change and to do. Ecore is a company where values are more than words, they are the cornerstone of a culture that can thrive for the next 100 years no matter the hardship.
Happy Holidays to you and your families,
Art Dodge
