“The will to succeed is always welcome here.”

I’m no fan of the wall that President Trump has promised.

Through the years, our company and its predecessors have benefited from the contribution of Latino colleagues. While we have endeavored to assure everyone on our team is legally eligible to work in America, our efforts to assure such compliance have caused us to release many people who worked hard on our behalf. Those actions remain amongst the saddest of which I’ve been involved.

So, I was moved by the 84 Lumber commercial that was shown on the Super Bowl Sunday night.

The commercial shows the travels of a Mexican woman and her young daughter to America. It’s a courageous trip. It appears the trip is fruitless as they confront a wall. But, the story turns to success when there is a wood door built in the midst of the wall that opens to let them in. The graphic at the end says it all:

“The will to succeed is always welcome here.”

You can look at the ad here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPo2B-vjZ28&feature=share

84 Lumber is our second largest customer. They use the ad to direct people to their website where they describe employment opportunities. They invested millions in the effort.

I admire 84’s courage to give perspective to this controversial topic of immigration. I salute them. They demonstrate what we know to be true.

Our greatest challenge is getting the people we need to grow and succeed.  To shut off avenues for those potential candidates  hurts us. Hurts our country.