Meeting the Challenge at AMR Plastics

Meeting the Challenge at AMR Plastics during this time has been adventurous to say the least. The start of a new decade has been met with many unprecedented and unforeseen challenges.  It began with our country dealing with the uncertainty.  With the upcoming election while our country was deciding whether to impeach our current president.  This was followed by a pandemic that has wreaked havoc on global economics and is a humanitarian disaster.  We have dealt with an enormous amount of social unrest…and let us not forget losing Kobe Bryant.  To be honest, seven months into the 2020’s has kind of felt like seven years for me.

So where do we go from here?  I think of Admiral Stockdale from the book Good to Great.  After being held as a POW for over seven years, Admiral James Stockdale was asked how he made it through so much time and torture while others did not.  He believed in accepting the brutal facts of the current situation while not losing sight of the goal.  Others were too optimistic and therefore died from a broken heart. 

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end. Which you can never afford to lose.  With the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be.”

There is no way I would compare myself to Admiral Stockdale.  All I can do is strive to be like him! By having the rigorous discipline to meet the challenge of what could be the most difficult time for our country in over 100 years.  This is truly an invisible enemy that has killed an average of approximately 1,000 Americans each day over the last five months on our own soil.  That is a brutal fact.

AMR Plastics Tactical Approach

As the pandemic was beginning to take hold this past March.  We decided AMR Plastics needed to innovate and focus on a tactical approach.  I thought we might need to supplement what could be a difficult economy. We had a compelling need to help establish solutions for our current circumstances.  I recall entering a drug store and noticed a plastic barrier between myself and the person at the register.  I asked about the barrier and was told it was called a sneeze guard.  As the business owner of a plastics company, it dawned upon me. At AMR, we were looking for ways to supplement business as I believed we were headed into a difficult period economically.  This “sneeze guard” was a plastic product!  I thought to myself, I own a plastics company that distributes raw materials to companies that make plastic products.  Seemed worth strongly pursuing.

I spent a lot of time performing due diligence sourcing the material, the fabricators, the packaging, and more.  As a raw material supplier, we have many customers who have now become suppliers.  In providing PPE equipment to include sneeze guards, partitions, face shields, and more.  We have been able to tap into our relationships with the best sheet producers, fabricators, and machinists in their fields.  It was a very time-consuming process. But also rewarding, as we arrived at the best product that I felt confident in providing to an entirely new market.

AMR Sneeze Guard Pro

We decided to call this signature product the AMR Sneeze Guard Pro. It is a product we proudly promote. The AMR Sneeze Guard Pro has the best combination of quality and value.  The initial design was one in which the barrier was completely solid.  We then had a demand for a “pass-through” model to facilitate transactions or document exchanges, which has become even more popular than the original solid version.

Since designing the AMR Sneeze Guard Pro we have added new products and will continue to add to our catalog of products.  We have designed a 4’ x 6’ standup partition that has been used in restaurants and break-rooms.  Then provided custom-designed barriers that serve as cubicle extensions, which we made highly stable and effective.  We have had extensive demand for face shields from a variety of industries.  We have received fantastic responses from our customers.  Proudly posting pictures of the products we have provided to them on their social media.  The bottom line is we will continue to expand our suite of products as the market demands it.

In Conclusion

We are excited to say we have supplied many industries with these products and have received positive feedback.  Some of these industries include medical clinics, optometrists, and ophthalmologists. The list continues to attorneys, financial advisors, mini-marts, golf courses, restaurants, high schools, and more.  We look forward to expanding our customer base even more as we continue to find ways to help with the current challenges we are facing.

Finally, the AMR Plastics team and I have never worked harder than we have during the year 2020.  We will submit to all our customers and suppliers that we will continue to do so.  In addition to our raw materials business, we will continue to focus on PPE solutions.  AMR strives to adopt the Admiral Stockdale approach of understanding goals while also having a pragmatic approach to achieving them.  At AMR, we will advocate, we will design, we will innovate, and in the end, we will persevere.