You have been able to keep Universal Seal manufacturing and shipping throughout this challenging COVID year. How have you been able to do that?

Yes, Universal Seal has stayed open and continued to ship products across the globe during COVID.

A new management task this year has been protecting employees and allying their fears, and our fears, about catching COVID-19. We have been able to help by giving employees some time off with pay and awarded some incentives. This has allowed them a better work life balance during these complex times.

What has been your biggest challenge as the manager through COVID?

The biggest challenge internally has been maintaining staff morale and motivation especially when the world economy was at a virtual standstill.

Have you been able to keep most of the staff in place and employed through the pandemic?

Universal Seal has been lucky in keeping all the employees that wanted to stay, which was a big part of our workforce. Only 5 employees went off on COVID leave.  We are fortunate that we are not just tied to a specific domestic market. We are diversified as we sell globally but manufacture in a safe North American location. We have been able to continuously ship to our domestic and international clients that have remained open.

What are you expecting into the 4th quarter and into next year for sales and revenue?

Fourth quarter should start to see a rebound unless the global economy shuts down again. Revenue should return to 80-90% of last year in the last quarter of this year. We are cautiously optimistic.