Big & Bigger Crain’s Chicago Business published an interesting list of “Chicago’s Largest Privately Held Companies” on April 20, 2020. Each company submitted 2019 sales numbers, which are generally private and not well known. Some top well-known brands in Illinois included Aldi in Batavia, Ace Hardware in Oak Brook, Jewel-Osco in Itasca, and True Value Hardware in Chicago. 353 companies were highlighted, with information on each including sales, sales growth in 2019, number of employees and type of business. Imagine our surprise to find NOW at # 106, especially since this was the first time we had ever provided our sales data. We still like to think of ourselves as a small, Mid-west supplier, but the numbers say otherwise. NOW reported sales in 2019 at $634 Million and 11% sales growth. The real shocker is how NOW compared to more famous companies that are smaller in sales. The Chicago Cubs baseball team listed sales at $471 Million and 4% growth. The Chicago Bears football team reported $453 Million, the Chicago Bulls basketball team $301 Million and the Chicago White Sox baseball team $285 Million. NOW not only was revealed to be much larger than all of these famous sports brands, but our sales growth rate doubled the best of these. To top it off, NOW’s sales were more than the Bulls and White Sox combined, which is really eye-opening. While we are excited by these numbers, we also remember many warnings about pride, including “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2) Family Expansion By the end of 2020, a number of 4th generation family members started working at NOW or Fruitful Yield stores. This is a direct result of Elwood Richard’s legacy of encouraging family members to work in the family business. He thought it would be a good way to keep kids busy, and what better place to work than the family business. This has worked very well, similar to an internship, as a way for our young people to learn how to be productive. Our Family Council helped to set up hiring rules, which guides fairness issues in hiring and promotions. Young family shareholders are offered temporary jobs during school years and are basically treated the same as other workers. We’ve been happy to include Sarah, Maddy, Gina, Michelle, Nolan, Max, Sam, Tim and Faith with part-time work. We also have a professional route for those who intend to make working at NOW their long-term career. In 2020, Adam and Nathan both started full-time work at NOW after working part-time for several years. Below is a picture of shareholders at a meeting in 2019. 2018-2020 133
