How hot is hot?

Sometimes things get SO hot that the firemen need to be called!

That was the case 7 years ago, on a Sunday morning, when our company suffered a devastating fire in our company headquarters.  We were not open and no one was there, but it took nearly three hours, 15 trucks and 47 firefighters to extinguish the fire! Even though they contained the blaze within 25 minutes, a roof fire kept the responders there for two more hours.

Despite all of this attention, units were called back to the scene to take care of a hot spot and a firefighter fell through the roof. Thankfully, he was up and walking around by day’s end and was released from the hospital.

Most companies could not withstand the complete cessation of business.

Layoffs would happen, and unless the CEO is extremely strong and has a deep desire to keep the company open and operating, then it is Game Over!

In our case, our fearless leader, Patrick Clouden, found temporary quarters, got new equipment, and while some worked around the clock we opened up within days! NOT ONE PERSON WAS LAID OFF!

So each year, we CELEBRATE this. We celebrate the American spirit which we are so proud to exemplify at CES. We celebrate Freedom and we celebrate Success!

We have a huge barbecue for all the CES staff, friends and family. Of course under the category of friends, we invite our amazing firefighters of Clearwater Fire & Rescue. We thank them each day for their service. They have become our friends.

As things go, when you make friends you want to support them whenever and wherever you can.

That was the case with our Clearwater Firefighter, Deputy Fire Marshal Ron Neuberger. Chief Neuberger owns an amazing dog named Quincy who was entered in a contest called the Hero Dog Awards. Quincy is also a member of Clearwater Fire & Rescue as an arson detection specialist. He can detect with amazing accuracy, the smallest traces of petroleum based products used as accelerants in fires.

Quincy has done this job for 9 years and will be retiring this year. Quincy is responsible for over 100 convictions and without him on the scene, these criminals would not be convicted and paying for their crimes.

Once you meet this pooch you understand why we just had to help him in this contest. We got everyone involved at work and all of our friends on social media. We had business people help us to promote the voting and we had t-shirts made too!

Quincy won the first round of voting and out of many dogs in his category of Law Enforcement/Arson, he made it to the Finals into round two. We continued our eager promotion and we gained daily voters in other countries—Ireland, Italy, France and even Taiwan!

Quincy came to meet everyone at CES and we even featured him on our radio spot on WTAN. He visited with us as we were live on the radio!

As it turned out, Quincy did not win this round, but he is a hero to us all! Our local hero pooch will always be our Number One! He brought many people together and he brought great pride to Clearwater, to our Firefighters, to Florida!