Last week while I was on vacation, we got a mysterious meeting request from Donna, our HR manager. It was a mandatory company meeting called for Tuesday afternoon at 3:30pm.  No one knew what it was about. I asked my boss, Lance, and he wouldn’t say a word. I had emailed Greg Appler asking him what it was about, he said he didn’t know anything. When I got back from vacation, I asked Donna, who sent out the request. She was certain that I had the inside track — and despite my denials to the contrary — was sure I knew something.

We filed into the conference room. Judy sat there alone waiting for all of us. She was looking kind of smug. She started talking about how challenging the last few years had been. And, indeed they had been. I began to think about when I had first arrived at Grafik. It was October 2008, and I had packed up as much as my car could carry and drove myself and my two dogs from Miami Beach, Florida. Within two months, the economy had really taken a turn for the worse, and Grafik — being the extremely conservative fiscal company that it is — made the some very tough decisions in order to weather the storm.

But no one complained. We all just went to work. It’s a real blessing that we really like each other — A LOT.  We kept pitching and pitching and working and working and — trust me — we had our fair share of disappointments. But then there were a lot of fabulous moments. We started stringing the successes together. We won some fabulous new clients like Global Automakers, JK Moving Services, Cap Relo, Anybill, Travelex, K12, Software AG, National Endowment for the Humanities, Gulliver Schools, TargusInfo, Skyterra, Prostate Cancer Foundation, Clarabridge, and Gannett. And we also welcomed some amazingly talented staff along with these new clients like Stacey, Kelsey, Mike, Lahaina, Danielle, Brandon, Eric, Dave, and MK.

Judy then turned her conversation to the great news of the day.  All the new faces and the veterans listened intently as she reported that our dedication, hard work and perseverance had paid off.  Our fiscal year had come to a close, and unlike many of our peers who had not survived the recession, we not only had survived, but we were showing a modest profit this year and we were on our way to a healthy recovery.  In gratitude for all that everyone had done, Judy gifted a new iPad 2 to everyone in the room.  I can tell you, that everyone was completely shocked and utterly touched.

But even more touching might have been the five “CEO Nods” that Judy proclaimed.  The first went out to Maxine, our comptroller, whom Judy credited with keeping herself and Partner David Collins calm and fiscally sane through the tough times. Maxine is always in the office before anyone gets here, and as Judy says, is her counselor — working late into the evenings and on weekends making sure that she is looking at the tough situations and making good, sound decisions.  She then commended Arthur for quietly, and consistently being the calm, cool collected guy who puts out fires when they are raging without the slightest whimper. Judy also commended Heath, whom she remarked has had everything, including the kitchen sink, thrown at him with her panicked calls from the farm when her hardware doesn’t work to really everything and anything technical happening at the shop.

And finally my two favorite nods, (not that they all weren’t great!) the first because it went to Greg Appler, who not only never attends staff meetings (we all applauded as he entered the room causing him to blush the color of a macintosh apple), but also because I personally know that he has been dreaming of an iPad for months. Now, he doesn’t take public praise well (or public attention for that matter), and although he and I work very closely together, we can often be heard screaming and fighting like an old married couple. He is my dear friend and when Judy commended his intellect, and his contributions to Grafik over the last four years, well, I was really, really proud.

And the last nod went to me.  If any of you out there regularly read our blog, you know how much I care about this place, so we can just leave it at that — thanks Judy.  We are all very grateful to be part of making sure that Grafik will be around for another 30 years.

And thanks for the iPads. They are AWESOME.