The DISTek Leadership Team embarked on some summer travels recently, taking it to the streets and visiting each of our primary locations throughout the Midwest to meet, greet, eat, celebrate, and have some fun. With our employee owners scattered across several states, it is important to support teamwork and collaboration. Hosting picnics and yard games seemed to be a great way to promote unity and togetherness while at the same time letting our guards down a bit and taking some much needed time out to have a good time and get to know each other a little better outside of the work place.
At each of the five different events, we initially held a team meeting to share our mid-year results and update everyone on happenings throughout the rest of the company. This included introducing Traction, an Entrepreneurial Operating System that the DISTek Leadership Team has adopted and is in the process of rolling out company wide. Additionally, being an ESOP company, we spent a bit of time talking about our recent shift to being 100% employee owned and how that plays into both our financial outlook and our short and long term strategy. We revealed the newest DISTek share price and ESOP participants received their 2018 stock certificates.
Formality now completed, it was time to head out and celebrate!
In Milwaukee, we faced a “feels like” temperature of 100 degrees and spent most of our time indoors. The good news was that it took half the time to preheat the grill – we might have even gotten away with simply placing the brats on rocks instead of lighting the grill.
In Dubuque, the venue above the Mississippi River Lock and Dam #11 could not be beat from a view and vantage point perspective. Throughout the evening, a 12-unit barge navigated the lock – for many, the first time having witnessed such a thing. A brief thunderstorm simply cooled us off and meant having our next beer under the shelter – which did not seem to be a problem for anyone!
In Des Moines and Cedar Falls, both events were conducted at our office locations – sort of in our back (front?) yards, simply dragging out coolers and grills and sharing food and drink with our friends and co-workers. Due to over 50 people attending the Cedar Falls event, the front landscape took on a new look with a large white “big-top” tent assembled. A very un-official corn-hole tournament ended with a thrilling come from behind victory.
Traveling up to Fargo in late July, I was glad to see the ice was off the river and the weather beyond beautiful. Unfortunately, an air-conditioning issue in the office meant for a warm meeting – even more reason to hurry up and get outside to enjoy a great evening with some local craft beer, Kubb, and another impromptu corn-hole tournament.
Teamwork. Unity. Family. Fun. Helping. Sharing. Supporting. Caring. DISTek is an employee owned company, and I was fortunate to witness firsthand so many of our employee owners working together to make our summer travels both eventful and memorable. When I mentioned in each meeting that WE, the employees, own the company, it was quite awesome to see everyone take that to heart and watch the owners of DISTek put on a great event. Thanks, everyone, for taking a part and making this a great summer. I look forward to many more!
