Surviving and Thriving through Recessions – Lessons from a Family Business
Downtown Dayton’s Requarth Co., founded in 1860, has survived civil and world wars, recessions and depressions, fires and floods, and more recently, a global pandemic and broken supply chain. Speaker and fellow Dayton Rotarian Alan Pippenger will share lessons learned as he led his family’s company through the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and the Pandemic Recession of 2020. The former devastated the construction and building material supply industry while the latter presented an entirely different – and wholly unexpected – set of challenges and opportunities. Alan is the fifth-generation president of the Requarth Co. A native Daytonian and a product of Dayton Public Schools, his career in the lumber industry began when he spent summers during college loading trucks in the Requarth warehouse. He joined Dayton Rotary in 1990, served as president of the foundation in 1996-97 and as Club President in 2000-2001.