Dear Friends,
As I reflect on this past week, I want to thank everyone who has sacrificed and made significant changes to their way of life due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, on behalf of the entire Leonard Bus Sales Team, I want to extend my heartfelt appreciation to our elected officials, healthcare workers, first responders, and essential service providers for their leadership and care for our citizens.
The Leonard Bus Sales leadership team and I have been monitoring the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the company. On Monday, we started changing the way we do business by socially distancing our staff as much as possible. As the week progressed, drastic and necessary actions were taken by our state and federal governments.
On Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that all non-essential businesses must close. I applaud the Governor for his transparency and leadership during this time and for taking the steps that most of us could not have imagined less than a week ago.
While Leonard Bus Sales is categorized as an essential business under the Governor’s state of emergency directives,the truth is that the current demand for our services, support and sales have been significantly reduced because New York’s schools have been closed. Because of this, we have been forced to reduce our staff and make drastic changes to our business model for the foreseeable future.
Our focus at this time is to continue repairing school buses as needed in order to ensure New York’s school districts and their school bus fleets are ready once our schools are reopened. We are also using this time to think of ways that Leonard Bus Sales can best support our friends, neighbors and family members who are on the frontlines during this very difficult situation.
My goal has always been to be open and honest with our staff and our customers, and this is no exception. On Friday we made the difficult decision to lay off a significant portion of our staff, many of whom have been with our company for a very long time. This was not an easy decision and it is one that we made with very heavy hearts. In the coming weeks, and months, we understand the need to closely monitor and adapt to the rapidly changing business environment.
While we are uncertain of what the long-term effects of this crisis will be on our communities and our lives, I am confident that Leonard Bus Sales will persevere because of the solid foundation which was laid over the last six decades by my grandparents and my parents.
In the meantime, we remain committed to our school transportation partners and look forward to helping our communities, state and country overcome this terrible crisis. We wish everyone good health and safety in the coming months.
Sincerely,
Jon Leonard
President
Leonard Bus Sales