NAEC and Me with Alesa McArthur Alesa McArthur

NAEC And Me: Guest - Jeff Eaton NAEC Board Member



Hi guys, this is Alesa.  I'm coming to you today with a great guest on my show and I can't wait to hear a little bit about what Jeff has to say. His name is Jeff Eaton and I am with the National Association of Elevator Contractors. Jeff is one of our board members. I wanted him to join us today because I think he has some great insights both from his part of the country out in California and also about what's going on in the world of potential mergers and acquisitions with the elevator industry. So Jeff I'd really like to start with you giving us a little bit of information about you and your business Lifts Advisors. -Sure well with respect to our industry I was fortunate enough to start with Otis Elevator back in 1989, which really dates me. But it doesn't take much math to see that's more than 30-years ago. But never would have imagined back then that I'd still be in the industry you know. More than three decades later but it's been a great run. I've had a lot of fortunate opportunities to work in various positions in five different countries which has been a great way to see a lot of the world and I've had a lot of what would be considered you know kind of normal elevator industry jobs, you know running branches and things like that but I've been able to do some things which really opened my eyes to you know not just what happens in big companies but you know how international business is conducted etc. Specifically I had two different stints working in Russia.The first time from 89 to 94. The beginning of that was still the Soviet Union and then you know had another stint from 04 through 07 so saw a big change in that country.

NAEC & Me with guest: Donald Gelestino - President of NAEC

Good Morning! This is Alesa McArthur coming to you from Atlanta, Georgia. I'm really excited to have Donald Gelestino, the president of the National Association of Elevator Contractors which I'm the executive director on line with me today to talk about some things. Don is the president also at Champion Elevator in the city of New York right in Manhattan and it's had lots of interesting experience with Covid 19. So I'd really like to start out by having Don talk to us a little bit before he gets too much into detail about that some info about his company. Don talk to us. - Hey, good morning Alesa. It's like most people today I'm actually working from home. Taking advantage of a little bit of casual talk, time around the house. But also pounding the pavement. Most days we're in Manhattan walking through Times Square.  Probably one of the only few people in the city and with the environment we're in  it's definitely interesting. Champion elevator is a full-service elevator company. We have 156 employees and we're running full staff. We actually didn't let anyone go through these times where jobs are shut down we deployed those people onto maintenance jobs and you know even gave our customers a little extra special attention so while the elevators are running a little better because as everyone knows if you're stuck in an elevator, number one, that's uncomfortable. If you're stuck in an elevator with somebody and they sneeze that's a little uncomfortable. When you're stuck in someone with an elevator and they sneeze during Covid 19 the elevator man better get there fast. So that's been our our mantra, just keep all people around the jobs and working as safe as possible. Just like all of our competitors and our other elevator family around the world I mean that's what you have to do right now.