November has arrived, so like many others, we at Omni would like to take the opportunity to express our thankfulness to the many people that contribute so much to our success, not only at this traditional time of Thanksgiving, but all year round. We couldn’t do it without you!

The best place to start is at the beginning. There would be no Omni without the initiative, leadership, persistence, and ingenuity of our founders, Kevin and Christina Chwala. Kevin’s extensive experience in the industry, combined with an inventive, problem-solving mind, resulted in the creation of the products we now provide that are widely considered to be the state-of-the-art in the restaurant protection industry. Christina’s background in accounting, money management, legal issues, and office procedure provides the basis for day-to-day and year-to-year smooth operations. They are both not just owners and bosses, but good, caring friends. Everyone at Omni is thankful to have them as our leaders!

We appreciate our suppliers. In 2001, when we first went into business and for the first few years, Omni would ship a Grease Gutter here and a couple of Super Hinges there. Sales were sporadic at best. Our needs were pretty easy for our suppliers to keep up with. Not anymore! There are occasions now when we ship as much product in a day as we would in an entire month back in the day! We have some customers now who place orders so large they have to be palletized and shipped via freight instead of UPS or FedEx. That’s good! But it requires us to have suppliers we can count on. And far more often than not they are up to the task. There have been occasional instances when we have run out of a particular product, and when that occurs we work together to correct it as soon as possible. So, thank you to our capable vendors!

Which brings us to the main reason for the aforementioned rapid growth; our wonderful distributors! It would be virtually impossible for the Omni sales and marketing force to contact every restaurant in this country. Obviously! We found that the best way to reach as many restaurants and other grease producing facilities as we could was by partnering with local, and in some cases national, restaurant service providers. These companies, which include hood and duct cleaners, HVAC, property management, and roofers among others, already have relationships with their restaurant customers and know what each facility might need to stay safe and free of grease. They promote Omni grease containment, hinges, and access doors which keeps their customers compliant with codes and at much less risk of fire. It’s a welcome source of additional income for them. And their partnership adds to Omni’s bottom line as well. It’s a winning proposition for all involved. We wouldn’t be where we are without our distributors and installers, so thank all of you for all you do.

There is a particular group of hood cleaners and associates who warrant an especially big thank you and that would be the amazing members of IKECA, the International Kitchen Exhaust Cleaning Association. IKECA is an organization whose members work tirelessly and effectively to bring restaurant safety standards and fire prevention awareness to those who need it most and are in a position to enact steps to ensure personal and property safety. These special people are without question responsible for saving countless lives and for preventing many, many millions of dollars in property damage. An enormous thank you to IKECA!

I’m sure you all have plenty of people and things you are also thankful for. We hope you have the opportunity to spend some time with them over the long Thanksgiving weekend. What’s better than that? Happy Thanksgiving to all!!