2020 Annual Report

ANNUAL 2020 REPORT Built Strong. Built by Hand. Built by People. Douglas Dynamics 2020 Annual Report Shareholder Letter that it would take time for government assistance programs to reach our employees, we paid all full- Dear Fellow Shareholders, time employees through the end of March. As I look back on a year like no other, my primary Additionally, we paid the employee portion of health reaction is a huge sense of pride. That may seem insurance premiums through April. We did this surprising given what a difficult year we all faced, but, because we wanted all employees to focus on their personally, I focus on the way our team responded to families’ health and safety and know that they were a set of challenges that no one in our lifetime has financially secure during the pandemic’s early stages. previously faced. However, there was a period where we were shut As the pandemic took hold around the world in the down, and our people needed to apply for first quarter of 2020, we put the health and safety of unemployment. Many on our team had never had to our employees and partners first. Not only did we go through this process, and it was both difficult and learn to operate safely and effectively within the stressful. Charlie created a step-by-step guide for local confines of a pandemic, we saw amazing, innovative employees to help them navigate their weekly safety solutions developed at our facilities around the unemployment claims and sent dozens of texts and country, which were then utilized and promoted emails to employees of his own volition. He went as across the Company. To say our people “stepped up” far as setting up a socially distanced workstation in would be a massive understatement, and the his dining room and inviting over team members to optimism and resilience displayed was truly help educate them and coach them through filing a staggering. That is why I decided to make our people claim. Not only did we not ask him to do this, we were the focus of this year’s shareholder letter. To be clear, not even aware he was doing it until our facilities there are literally hundreds of people we could have reopened and people told us how much they included in this letter. The 21 people we decided to appreciated it. This is a perfect example of how our include do not even begin to scratch the surface of culture goes beyond what you typically see at a well- the talent we have at Douglas Dynamics, but they are run organization and sometimes feels more like great examples of what makes Douglas special. I want family. to thank everyone at the Company, not just those I won’t focus the entire letter on people who went mentioned in this letter, for their tireless efforts in the above and beyond following the pandemic—the list past year. would be too long—but I would be remiss in not Charlie Reed is really the original inspiration for this mentioning the two individuals who led our letter after going above and beyond to help his co- COVID-19 Safe Return to Work Teams—Chris Horn workers during the pandemic shutdown. Charlie has and Dan Lovy. Based in Milwaukee, Chris is a 36 years of service at Douglas Dynamics and is based 13.5-year veteran at Douglas and is our Director of in our Rockland, Maine facility. After a recent Engineering in the Attachments segment. Dan has promotion, he is now our highest-level Business Unit worked in Milwaukee for almost 17 years and, after Supervisor—Level III. He started at Douglas back in numerous promotions, is now Vice President of 1984 as a laborer with our Student Co-Op program Manufacturing for the Attachments segment. while he was still in high school, working for us in the evening. Together, Dan and Chris created cross-division, cross- location, cross-functional teams to address the I firmly believe we looked after our people better than challenge of returning to work. They researched a most companies during the seven weeks that our wide range of COVID-19 safety and mitigation manufacturing operations were shut down due to the recommendations from organizations such as the pandemic from mid-March to early-May. Knowing Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the World 1 Health Organization (WHO). They created our Safe • Gregory Stocke—Operator II in Milwaukee, Return to Work plan, which focused on protocols Wisconsin around disinfecting, social distancing, communication, and education. They put in countless My thanks to all six individuals for their dedication and contributions over more than four decades! I hours planning and adapting our facilities to the new appreciate the institutional knowledge you bring to reality to create a safe and productive workplace for the team and your willingness to grow and learn with everyone. In the end, we were fully staffed and 100% the Company throughout your career. I would also operational ahead of schedule in early May. They also like to mention Ronnie Bachman, who retired last year created plans and response teams in the event that after spending more than 50 years working at our employees needed to quarantine, or parts of the Henderson Products facility in Manchester, Iowa. business needed to be shut down for cleaning. Their Congratulations on your well-deserved retirement, efforts were so successful that we developed a Ronnie! COVID-19 resources page on our Company website that outlined the plans and protocols that helped us We also have another 33 people with more than safely bring our employees back to work. We shared 30 years of service at the Company. My hat is off to that page with our customers and partners, as well as all of these individuals and many more who act as role other businesses and associations in our industry and models and mentors, helping build the next within our communities, and received thousands of generation of long-term Douglas employees. hits from companies and organizations worldwide. The longest-tenured employee in our Beijing, China We were determined to put the safety of our people office is Maya Zhong, who has been with the first, and Dan and Chris put in a tremendous effort Company for almost 11 years—far longer than the to make sure we were able to do just that. They would average tenure for foreign enterprises in China. She not have been able to accomplish what they did, has been promoted twice during her time with however, without the help of our unwavering human Douglas. She is one of a small number of resources teams. When the pandemic struck, our HR professionals who have earned their Certified teams across all locations moved fast and came Profession in Supply Management (CPSM) together, working around the clock, taking designation in China. Maya’s current role is Douglas unprecedented measures to keep our employees safe Sourcing Office (DSO), Senior Manager of Sourcing while also helping keep the business operating. To and Logistics. Her team is responsible for managing date, we have not seen a major outbreak at any of our our DSO suppliers and continuing to grow savings for facilities, and I’m happy to say our employees are our divisions. Maya drove successful use of shipment making the right decisions regarding quarantine consolidations to reduce inventory in support of our following exposures outside the workplace. DSO items. She is a great example of ‘How We Win’ for the DSO team and adopting our culture. She has Several of the people I have already mentioned have a also been instrumental in hiring, training, and long tenure at our Company. In this day and age, educating new team members about our business over having long-tenured employees is not something you the past decade and is a vital part of our team. see that often, but at Douglas, we take pride in the fact that many people stay with us for decades, and We are proud to currently employ more than 80 active some for their entire career. In fact, today, we have six service members and retired veterans and hope that individuals with more than 40 years of service, number continues to grow. Hiring veterans is not namely: primarily an altruistic move on our part—veterans make fantastic team members! Their training, • James Carleton Jr.—Facility Lead in Rockland, discipline, problem-solving skills, and work ethic Maine make it an easy hiring decision. One example is Duane Wright, a retired Captain in the United States Marine • Mary Goos—Engineering Designer in Manchester, Corps. He spent his 22-year military career working Iowa in electronics maintenance. Duane deployed around • Richard Nachtman—Prototype and Fixture Tech in the world multiple times, including three deployments Manchester, Iowa to Iraq. He joined our Technical Service team in 2016 and was promoted to Technical Service Manager in • Loras Neuhaus—Shipper / Receiver in Manchester, 2018, and has been a great addition to our team. Iowa Douglas Dynamics hired Duane through the Hire-A- • Benjamin Stenman—Engineering Product Vet Campaign, for which we received an award from Coordinator in Milwaukee, Wisconsin the State of Maine. I want to thank Duane for his 2 service and sacrifice for our Country and for his moved into an office to take on a Customer Service contributions to our Company over the past role. He was successful in that role but decided that he five years. preferred working on the manufacturing floor and went back into the Assembler / Packer role as a Lead. As with other parts of the Douglas Dynamics family, In 2019, he was promoted into a Business Unit our Dejana operations have many people with Supervisor Apprentice, and most recently, he was decades-long tenure.

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