Dear Friends,
When we reflect on 2009, how do we choose to remember the year? Some might define it entirely by the most significant financial crisis since the Great Depression. Others might describe it as a year when businesses lost their stakeholders’ trust and respect. While we cannot discount the profound impact of the global recession, we can choose to remember 2009 as a year that challenged Fairmount Minerals’ commitment to sustainable development, but strengthened our resolve.
The financial crisis in 2009 demonstrated the dire consequences of short-term thinking. Fairmount Minerals understands that operating in a way that respects the needs of our employees and society while protecting the environment enables our long-term viability. While other organizations viewed their economic challenges as a time to scale back their social and environmental efforts, we made a decision to maintain our commitments and empower our employee family to find new ways of generating sustainable value. With an emphasis on strong communications and hard work on the part of our Fairmount employee family, we achieved 98 percent of our Bold Goals for sustainable development.
When key markets began to falter in 2009, our people reacted quickly, drawing on the relationships and expertise we have developed in recent years as a result of our sustainable practices. Dramatic contractions in some of our key markets led to decreased production and, unfortunately, a workforce reduction at Fairmount Minerals. Through it all, our employee family members came together and demonstrated the ways in which our sustainable practices do, in fact, pay off. We focused on the small steps we could take today that would add up to something much greater tomorrow. One hour spent volunteering at a foodbank could mean much more than providing a single meal — it could give hope to a family in need. One site tour with local students could inspire the world’s next great ecologist. And, one preventative health screening for an employee could be the wake-up call needed to save one life.
Our sustainability practices created prosperity in the form of cost savings and new revenue generation. Our wellness program once again helped us to achieve individual employee health cost savings, which we project to be 23 percent below industry trends. We implemented new processes and technologies to support environmental objectives such as waste reduction, which will generate more than $600,000 in annual savings. And, we launched a new subsidiary, Fairmount Water Solutions, that provides water filtration technology to combat the social and environmental issues related to global water scarcity. One by one, these efforts helped us to finish the year strong.
As we look ahead to 2010 and beyond, we see great opportunities to enhance prosperity through technological innovation and key talent development initiatives. We recognize that rapid shifts in external environmental, social and economic forces will require flexibility and adaptability. As customer and market demands will evolve in response to these forces, we will need to adeptly transition to a more technology-driven approach. The work of our Fairmount Minerals University team will become increasingly important as new skills and competencies will need to be developed within the strong core of people and expertise that already exists at Fairmount Minerals.
It is my distinct honor and pleasure to be a part of an organization that so fully embodies the values of a sustainable culture. One by one, we come to work each day, dedicated to exceeding expectations in all that we do. One by one, we perform in ways that respect people, planet and prosperity. One by one, we are making a difference. One by one, we are the change we wish to see in the world.
Sincerely,
Chuck Fowler
