Condition reports from EMDA members (listed alphabetically by company name).
Share conditions and updates from your territory by sending note to EMDA staff at pat@EMDA.net
Kent Zimmerman, John Day Co.
03-23-2020 – Letters sent to Governors yesterday….will see how this plays out. Talk around Nebraska is Monday, we may have restrictions getting to work etc. We are hearing of a crackdown to keep non-essential people home. As part of ag & industrial distribution, we are considering ourselves essential…..now just waiting for official notice.
Steve Prouty, McNeil Marketing
03-23-2020 – Oregon’s Ag Industry is considered Essential and we will continue to operate at this time. Our Ag Dealers have gone to skeleton crews in their retail stores and salesmen are working from home. One of our California manufacturers notified us yesterday that they will continue operating under the “Essential” classification as California goes into locks down. Personal Note, my brother lives on Anderson Island located on the Puget Sound, Pierce County, Washington State. He is 70 years old with a heart condition but is in otherwise, good health. He and his wife were exposed to COVID-19 recently and shortly after exposure he acquired the symptoms and tested positive for the virus, but his wife tested negative. He described his illness as the flu and he nursed his symptoms as such. His symptoms cleared in a similar timeframe (about one week) as any other Flu type he has experienced in the past. Today they are both healthy and clear of the virus. I want to share this as a positive story amongst all the uncertain and scary stories we are hearing about this virus from the new media.
Mark Tibbitts, General Implement Distributors
03-23-2020 – Our company as a whole reached out to the state of Nevada after they announced locking down their state to ask non-essential business. We learned that 3 of our 4 divisions were considered essential. Those being our CE, MH, & GID. That is due in large part to the fact that all divisions are working in food production, storage, warehousing, and movement. We’re currently operating everywhere for the most part as usual. We are calling dealers ahead of time to make sure they want us there. The only push back so far has been C&B Stores. We have also asked the salesmen to prioritize the delivering of parts and units over making sales calls for the time being.
Ryan Skibo, Pequea Machine Co.
03-24-2020 – As of now still have no cases at or related to anyone at Pequea. We are still at 100% operationally. In addition to the prescribed cleaning and disinfecting this is what we have done to mitigate risk going forward. We quarantined the office staff from interacting with the production staff at all. As production is more important in the short/medium term our goal is to keep them as safe as possible. Additionally we split our normal single shift into two separate shifts that don’t overlap. This spaces out employees in the factory and hopefully reduces risk of a significant number catching and spreading it. Everyone eats in their vehicle or at their work stations. No more physical meetings of any sort. We split the office into 3 teams where we rotate work 2 days from home remotely and 1 day in the office for similar reasons. Fortunately for us we had a system recently set up so that most admin staff are able to work remotely. Just an update of what we are doing.
3-23-2020 – Likewise with us, this is the first time in my life I have been considered “essential.” Pequea as an agricultural manufacturer is considered life essential by both the feds and Pennsylvania. Things are changing fast so I appreciate any updates you guys can provide.