Seriously, 2020 was a very challenging year for Medworks, as it was for almost everyone. COVID-19 has impacted every area of our lives. Fear, uncertainty, isolation, drastic changes in routine are a few of the things we have had to cope with. Even with its challenges, the year produced many positive highlights, and a lot of foundational work was accomplished that will position us for a strong 2021.

In July, we moved into our new spacious office. This beautiful facility will provide us plenty of room for our future growth. The simulated operating-room space is ideally suited for training, as well as creating training and educational videos.

We expanded our coverage to the West Coast, and are now serving customers in Washington, Alaska, northern Idaho, and Montana. We welcomed to the Medworks’ sales team, Nathan Blackham and Ashly Berg. We negotiated contracts with Richard Wolf, Bard Endourology, Kyra Medical, and Convergent Laser Technologies for the western territory. We have already begun doing service cases in Montana and Seattle, Washington. Will Reynolds completed several trips to the West Coast to get things going. He and his family spent one and a half months there during November and December.

With Richard Wolf, an important partner that manufactures world class instrumentation for urology, gynecology, general surgery, and ENT, we once again had the highest sales of any US entity.

Speaking of the website, another exciting development in 2020 was the revamping of the Medworks website. The new site is much more interactive than ever before, including. Our goal is to make it an extensive informational resource for our customers, while remaining user friendly. We have already added quite a lot of new content that we hope you will find useful.

Continually, Medworks encourages its employees to engage in charitable works...works that bring them meaning and fulfillment. It is my joy to allow paid time off for these endeavors. Medworks gives back so that they can give back, and I am proud to have a team that is motivated to help others. Together, we can make the room, and the world a better place. So, while COVID was the cause of some cancelled outreach opportunities, other opportunities arose and were embraced. Will Reynolds was able to complete a mission's trip to Belize. Lindsey Tuck and Neika Hart worked together to get a full gym setup for a mission in Nicaragua, Neika’s homeland. The two of them plan to go there this year when they get the green light to travel. Jonaye Barnum volunteered a week through WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). She stayed on the farm located in the mountains of Churchville, VA assisting with flower and vegetable gardening preps, as well as tending the chicken coop.

With the help of Zoom, Medworks was able to have productive conversations with the dedicated folks at The Success Foundation, bringing to the table our learned experience from employing a youth in the “aged out” foster care population. Our observations were vital to the TSF as they crafted a youth program combining assessments, counseling, mentoring, and job skills training. Youths from Independent Living (IL) programs are now screened for enrollment and will emerge job ready with better outcomes for both employee and employer.

Through "socially distanced" outreach, Medworks was able to complete two large projects that involved nearly every member of our team. This was accomplished by helping support a young man out of foster care who was faced with the overwhelming task of filling 100 hygiene bags for the homeless community. It was his assignment for complying with required community service hours. While he was able to fill and deliver the bags, he didn't have the funds or means to acquire the items. Medworks rose to the occasion and provided every item he needed!

As the holidays approached, Medworks adopted an "at risk" family with four young children to provide an abundant Christmas for them and their very grateful mom. Well done, team!

For the last few years, I have chosen “one word” to use as a guide for self-improvement. I have found it helpful to keep that word at the front of my mind. In past years, I chose “Discipline”, “Present”, and last year was “Listen”. With all the unexpected developments in 2020, I must admit that I did a poor job of keeping my focus on the word I chose. Because of that, I have decided to stay with the word “Listen” for 2021. I even just finished reading a book called You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy. This year, I am committed to becoming a better listener. If you are up for it, I encourage you to choose a word to live by in 2021.

As I close this letter, I wish to thank our manufacturing partners for providing world class products and great customer service, and a sincere thank you to our customers for their continued loyalty year in and year out. I am truly grateful to all of you.

I also want to thank the Medworks team for the amazing GRIT they have shown in the last year. Their versatility in abilities and willingness to take on new challenges causes me to be very optimistic and excited about all the things we will accomplish in 2021. We got this!