February is American Heart Month, a time to raise awareness about heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States.

This cause is deeply personal to the Ergon family, and we are committed to raising awareness each year. For Tony Ramey, Supply Center Supervisor — Crafco Inc., an Ergon company, heart health is more than just a message – it’s a reality.

Pictured is Tony Ramey, Supply Center Supervisor for Crafco’s Millbury Supply Center.

Two years ago, Ramey suffered a massive heart attack. Months later, he went in for a routine checkup, which unexpectedly led to open-heart bypass surgery.

Ramey’s heart attack and surgery put a lot of things into perspective for him. “My heart health doesn’t just affect me, it affects many,” he shared. “It took me time to accept what was happening to me, but with the support of my incredible wife, loving family, friends and all the doctors and nurses, I am working my way back to normal.” Following this life-changing experience, Tony prioritizes healthy eating habits, regular check-ins with his medical providers and consistent exercise. He also prioritizes doing what he loves – playing with his grandchildren, golfing with his wife and spending quality time with family and friends.

Crafco Team Members showing their support for Wear Red Day at the Millbury Supply Center in Millbury, Massachusetts.

Ergon is committed to supporting employee well-being, including physical, mental and financial. Our Ergon Active initiative was created to promote healthy lifestyles and provide a sense of community as employees work toward healthy habits for improved quality of life. The program was launched on Valentine’s Day in 2022, emphasizing the impact healthier choices have on improving overall heart health and ensuring you are there for your loved ones.

In addition to our organization-wide efforts such as Ergon Active and more, we are also proud to support the efforts of organizations, like the American Heart Association (AHA), that provide resources for people to live healthy lives. Throughout American Heart Month, the AHA promotes initiatives to educate the public on heart disease risk factors, encourage healthy lifestyle choices, support research and advocate for heart health policies.

After his own health scare, Crafco’s Tony Ramey knows full-well the importance of investing in organizations that can impact the lives of so many. “I definitely know how important it is to support heart health awareness and the organizations who do so much to support this cause,” he shared.

Special thanks to the AHA for all they do to promote healthy hearts. We encourage everyone to start prioritizing heart health today. You can start by checking out healthy tips from the AHA here!

Read Ergon President & CEO Kris Patrick’s latest LinkedIn article, as shown below, to learn why people have always been at the heart of Ergon’s business strategy.

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When considering a business strategy, components such as vision, mission, growth goals, operational excellence, competitive advantages, SWOT’s and finances may come to mind. Each of these components plays a significant role in determining where an organization is headed and where it should place its efforts. Being part of the Ergon family, we’ve learned the strongest driver in all strategic decisions is not shaped by questions around what, but who. Ergon is a people-focused organization, and our strategy, what we value and what creates value for us as a global organization, is based on our desire to serve, support and meet the needs of people, just as the Lampton family has emphasized throughout my career.

For over 70 years, Ergon’s business strategy has been centered on how we serve people, beginning with our mission to meet needs, support families and serve customers. This approach has allowed us to support the evolving needs of our customers, make a positive impact in communities and provide avenues for thousands of employees to support their families. The following is a glimpse into how the value Ergon places on our business family impacts the way we do business. I encourage you to consider these examples as you reflect on the roles people play in moving your business forward.

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People Determine the Direction of Your Business
At Ergon, it is our focus on people that determines the direction of our business and how and where we operate. We work from a people-conscious mindset – always considering the long-term effects of our actions, products and services. Because of this, we’re committed to innovating for the future to make lives better. This commitment includes everything from doing our part to help ensure reliable energy sources across a growing global electrical grid, to providing cost-effective products to keep America’s roadway infrastructure intact, to building up communities and delivering products across a solutions-driven supply chain. But our focus on people and improving lives is not just external.

We wholeheartedly believe genuine care and consideration for employees is more critical now than ever before to the success of any company. None of our successes have been possible without those who work every day to produce, develop and manufacture our solutions that keep the world moving. As such, we understand our greatest asset is our people — the Ergon family.

The word Ergon is Greek for a measure of work, and the measure of our work starts and ends with our people. We do our part every day to ensure our business family understands how much we value their critical roles in Ergon’s journey of service.

Employees are more engaged when they feel appreciated.
People may be less likely to stay with a company long term if they are not satisfied. Ergon boasts a workforce with a range of employees from those who started last week to those who started over 60 years ago. Such lengthy terms of service, coupled with the fact that new people are joining our business family at a fast rate (approximately 65% over the past five years), speak volumes of the culture of our company –  a culture that makes people want to join, stay and contribute.

A 2022 survey of Ergon employees indicated that over 77% of our employees are actively engaged with the company. In comparison, average employee engagement was 32% in the U.S. and 23% globally, according to 2024 Gallup reports. This outstanding statistic is a testament to the culture we have cultivated and are dedicated to enhancing. But there’s still work for us to do.

We’re steadily enhancing our Human Resources efforts across our family of companies, including implementing wellness programs to enrich the whole person – physical, mental, financial and more. Additionally, we’re supporting ongoing training and education for purposeful employee growth and creating programs centered on employee recognition at every level of our business. As Ergon continues to expand our footprint around the world, we remain committed to maintaining a people-focused culture where we appreciate our people and pour into them.

The multiplying effect of prioritizing your people.
Strategically, focusing on our people and demonstrating our interest and care in them as individuals means we have a perfect opportunity to model how we would want them to treat our customers and those within the communities we serve. In fact, feedback we get from customers is not just about our products and services, but about the engagement and thoughtfulness of our people and how much we are honestly invested in finding successful long-term solutions to their challenges. Our employees genuinely care about the success of our customers. In turn, our customers know that in Ergon, they have partners, not just service providers. And that is very much how our teams work within Ergon. We are all partners, working together, solving challenges and encouraging each other along the way. Taking cues from our people and allowing them to flourish is the most strategic thing we do. It’s the driving force behind our growth and expansion over seven decades and beyond.

What we value determines how we work.
A common trait among Ergon employees is a genuine desire to make a difference in the lives of our customers, the communities we serve and one another. On some level, we know that we must continue to encourage this passion within the organization and ensure that we don’t unintentionally impede this driving force.

No matter what we do or how successful we’ve been, it’s our amazing business family that got us to this point, it’s our employees who will take us even farther, and it’s our people who will ensure that as we continue to grow, we remain true to our mission to meet needs, support families and serve customers. I am forever grateful to be a part of this business family.

In what ways does prioritizing people impact your business strategy?