Evelyn Price was fifty-eight.
She had spent twenty-seven years working for a manufacturer that had closed one of its Ohio facilities.
Most companies saw her age first.
Daniel saw her experience.
She sat across from him in a tiny office with exposed pipes overhead and answered every question cautiously.
Finally, Daniel closed her résumé.
“You know more about purchasing than I do.”
Evelyn gave a tired smile.
“Most places think I know too much.”
“What does that mean?”
“They want somebody younger.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I want somebody who knows when a supplier is lying.”
That earned her first real smile.
“I can usually tell.”
“When can you start?”
She stayed twenty-six years.
The next employees came slowly.
Harold Benton joined the warehouse.
Maria Lopez handled accounts.
Frank Dawson drove the first company truck.
Linda Shaw managed customer service.
Together with Daniel, they made six.
The first payroll sheet had been written partly by hand because the small accounting service Daniel used had made an error with the printed version.
Daniel kept that original list.
For decades.
Not as a souvenir.
As a reminder.
Those first years were difficult in ways younger employees would later struggle to imagine.
Once, a major customer delayed payment for sixty days and Daniel did not take a salary for six weeks so payroll could clear.
Another winter, a boiler failure left the warehouse so cold employees worked in coats for three days.
Margaret arrived with two portable heaters and enough soup for everyone.
During the recession, Daniel and Evelyn spent weekends calling suppliers to negotiate longer payment terms while Maria quietly reworked the cash-flow sheet again and again.
The company survived.
Then grew.
Ten employees became thirty.
Thirty became one hundred.
One warehouse became three.
Mercer parts found their way into factories across the Midwest.