I never thought I’d be writing a message that could possibly be placed into a company time capsule. These certainly are historic times. And for those who know me, you may know that I’m a fan of Gabrielle Garcia Marquez, hence the play on words in the title. He certainly knew how to paint the picture of paradox, contradiction, juxtaposition, and irony. He’d be fully supportive of the EDIS notion to look at this crisis not at face value, but for its potential, as if it had some supernatural power to help us see into the future and adapt us to a new world. He’d be intrigued by the idea that today we are not traveling down a hole and chasing calamity, we have the audacity to look for gold in the darkness.
We are not the originals at having audacity. Let’s look to our EDiS past. In 1905 when Ernesto’s son was struggling with illness, Ernesto moved across the world from Italy to Delaware, abandoning everything he knew. Facing calamity and fear, he reached for gold. And when he arrived, his son was swept into WWI and his new community was stricken with the Spanish Flu. Rather than retreat into despair, he had the audacity to organize the company to build one of our landmarks, the Tower Hill School, putting the company into a position of notoriety. He found gold. After the depression, our founders built houses. During WWII, we converted manufacturing plants to build tanks, establishing ourselves as general contractors. As the war in Vietnam and racial disparity pulled at our social fabric, the company studied better ways to deliver projects, becoming one of the first contractors in the county to deliver Construction Management. During the recession of 2008 we retooled and became one of the most integrated Level III BIM (Building Information Modeling) companies on the eastern seaboard. In the darkness, we found gold. We’d be foolish to think that the spirit of EDiS today is any different. We’ve pivoted successfully several times since March 11 while connecting at higher levels with technology and demonstrating a commitment to our fellow constructor. In this turbulence, we are finding gold.
But the real gold we seem to be finding is on the human level. I hate to admit that turning off the distractions that have become our way of life has allowed us to reconnect and humanize our interactions. We are finding greater purpose and examining priorities. We are discovering empathy and forging relationships brought on through adversity. We are finding Love in the Time of COVID. And because of that, our future is good.
