MeritDirect Event Panel Heading Back to the Future, Part 1

We planned for 2009 intelligently. As a result, our revenue will emulate 2006, and we’ll be more profitable than last year. In June [2009], we were 15 percent ahead of our plan.

Sexton: [Northern Safety CEO] Sal Longo has been screaming “recession” since 2006. We were planning big-picture strategies in January [2009] and shifted to complete crisis management. We feel we made surgical strikes. It started with payroll; then we adjusted our legacy system. We have cost-cutting and margin-improvement teams. Our people really stepped up. We’re being hyperefficient. Efficiency has always been important, but never heard as often and loudly as it is now.