Dear Readers:

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how a company develops a personality of its own. After all, every day at DR Power 250 different people show up for work, each with a distinct world view, and over our 27 year history, over 1,000 different people have worked here. Yet our company personality has remained remarkably consistent from day-to-day and year-to-year.  That’s a fairly extraordinary thing.

If I had to describe DR Power as I would a person, I would use words such as “friendly”, “loyal”, “fair”, “hard-working”, “warm”, “polite” and “trustworthy.” One would expect a person with those qualities to do well in the world – to succeed at what they set out to achieve – to remain steadfast and committed in tough times – and to be a good neighbor and a positive role model in their community.  And indeed, we’ve met each of these expectations.

Certainly much of why we are the way we are can be credited to our founding belief that we need to measure our success as much by how well we treat each other and our customers as we do by the “bottom-line” – trying each and every day to run our company by the “golden rule.”  But most of all I credit our employees who every minute of every day have a choice on how to treat their co-workers and our customers.  Their commitment to living these beliefs is really what makes us who we are.

Unlike financial measurements, where results can be easily measured, sometimes it’s hard to know how well we’re doing in our goal to be a great employer.  So it was very gratifying to learn last week that we had been named a 2013 “Best Place to Work In Vermont” company.  This was the third year in a row, and a fourth time overall, that we’ve received this honor.

The Best Places to Work in Vermont award program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the top employers in Vermont as measured by anonymous employee surveys.  Companies from across the state participate in a two-part process to determine the final list. The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems and demographics. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking.

We are honored to have received this recognition again this year, thanks to the neighborly spirit that flows through our offices.  Congratulations to all our employees for maintaining such an encouraging workplace atmosphere – from the dedicated workers on our factory floor, to the customer service representatives who man our phones and everyone in between.  And of course thank you to you, our dear customers and fellow country life advocates, for your trust in us.  It’s great to have you as a customer.

Yours Truly,

Joe Perrotto

President, Country Home Products, home of DR Power Equipment