Welcome to 2021. As we launch into a new year and reflect on the last one, I want to use this public platform to say thank you to the team at Tripepi Smith. 2020 demanded a lot from everyone, including our own team, and I take deep pride in how our talented professionals worked together this year.

Tripepi Smith had been operating with no office and a work-from-home setup for the last several years–so operationally, 2020 was a breeze. Though the team was used to a thirty second commute to their desk, they, like everyone else, did not have experience with pandemic communications. It is a 100-year test. Adaptation, however, is something built into the DNA of Tripepi Smith, and each team member rose to the occasion and worked even harder to deliver for clients, while also going through their own personal stresses, concerns about health, social unrest and uncertainty about the future of society.

The pressure on our team was pervasive, from their personal concerns to their work, as they moved from client to client stewing on coronavirus questions, public shutdown anger and a politically-charged environment. Work for our team was not an escape from social stresses; it was a boiling pot full of them. I tell prospective new hires that joining Tripepi Smith will put them in the front row and on the 50-yard line of the great policy issues of our time. That sounds exciting to the people who join our team, however, 2020 wasn’t a game anyone wanted to attend. Indeed, the year evolved in a way that could have crushed their spirits. But we had work to do and clients to help, so they forged ahead.

In the most unusual of years, we hired five new staff having never met them in person. All of them, fresh out of or just wrapping up college, have proven resilient, flexible and committed. The Gen Z/Zoomers we hired rule. And our phenomenal OG team members were thrilled to have new talent show up ready to support our mission of revolutionizing communications in local government.

Here’s to great teams. I hope you have an amazing team in your department or at your public agency. Teams make anything possible, and I know this because I see it everyday in the work of our folks at Tripepi Smith. I thank them each for their dedication to clients and each other, and their passion to adapt and deliver in the most challenging of years. 2020 forged us into an even stronger group. 2021 is going to be epic.