Announcer: Our next honor goes to a third generation family led by an extraordinary patriarch who came to this country from Poland at 18 after surviving five Nazi concentration camps. He couldn't speak English and didn't have money, friends or family, but through hard work and persistence, he established a thriving business and at the same time start a close knit family building everything from nothing. I wish I could have met him.
I'm very proud to present the counselor supplier Family Business of the Year Award to Burnside Sierra Pacific. And after the video, David Finkelman, president of Burnside Sierra Pacific and the grandson of the company's founder will accept on behalf of the family. Let's watch this video,
Video Plays: A native of Poland, Wolf Finkelman was a teenager when he was liberated from a concentration camp at the end of World War II and sailed to the United States, the sole remaining survivor of his family of nine. He left a number of lasting legacies, including a family that now counts four generations and an apparel company, Scope Imports, that's been in business for 56 years. Today, Wolf's children and grandchildren run the company, which is known in the promo industry as Burnside Sierra Pacific.
"The value of trust and consistency remain woven throughout the fabric of the company. Our biggest strengths are that we're honest and we care," says Alan Finkelman, Wolf's son and the president of Scope.
Owing to its remarkable origin story, incredible employee loyalty, and continued impact on the promo industry, Burnside Sierra Pacific is Counselor's Supplier Family Business of the Year.
David Finkelman: Wow, I'm so honored to be included in such an impressive group of honorees tonight. Um, I'm completely blown away, um, but I want to take the time to say a special thank you to ASI and the Cohen family for this honor and all they do for the industry.
I also want to give a special thank you to my gradpa Wolf, who started our business, and to my father who brought me in to join him in the business and worked hard to instill his work ethic and values into me and my siblings.
Also I want to thank our very hardworking staff, both everyone here tonight that joined us and everyone back in Houston. As the Cohen family alluded before, we're really only as good as the people around us and having great people around you really allows you to achieve the things you want to achieve.
And lasty, I really want to thank our customers. Without customers - and many of you are here tonight - we really wouldn't be here and wouldn't be able to do the things that we're able to do.
And I'll leave you with one thought that I think is really cool about the industry and something that I love is that many of these really monster, huge companies, a lot of 'em on that billion dollar list, are family-run companies. Whether they were family-run once or still family-run, they still embody many of the values run by family businesses. And it's very cool to work in an industry that feels like one big, happy family.
And I just want to say I look forward to the future and who knows, with a little luck and some hard work, maybe the fourth generation will be up here taking the helm of the business - in probably quite some time - but we'll see what happens. And, uh, thank you very much and, uh, hope you all have a great evening. Appreciate it.
