(Disclosure: RLG represents Goodwill and HealthyVerify.)
Georgann Yara | Special for the Arizona Business Gazette
It was a typical Mexico business trip for Charles Sacks, the CEO of The Fixture Zone, a Phoenix company that provides fixtures and display pieces for retailers.
He knew of a mysterious virus that had emerged from Asia that was making its way West. But like most Americans at the time, he wasn’t too worried. It was March 9.
Six days later, those feelings changed.
As he woke that morning and prepared to drive back to Arizona from Sonora, he received news reports about the border possibly closing.
“Oh man, this is real,” Sacks said of his thoughts at the time. “I packed up and drove home as fast as I could.”
The family-run business that Sacks’ father Erik Sacks purchased in 1991 had experienced steady success over the decades and was having a good year. Big-name retailers like Kroger, Coke and Goodwill relied on The Fixture Zone to provide materials like peg hooks, slat wall panels and custom pieces to showcase their inventory in their brick-and-mortar locations.