Local impact: Kevin Mannix on current crisis

This month, the Oregon Transformation Newsletter, published a series of interviews with Oregon CEOs about their efforts in the coming months to keep their workforces whole and their companies intact. We plan to publish a series of articles highlighting excerpts from those interviews:

Kevin Mannix, Mannix Law Firm

If you are a business owner, how financially capable is your business of surviving this pandemic crisis? What measures have you taken to keep your workforce whole? Do you plan to hire back your staff, or will you be able to keep your workforce relatively whole through the crisis?

My law firm is financially capable of surviving this pandemic crisis. We are exercising appropriate precautions at the office. I will protect my workforce because they are a valued team. If there is a dramatic shutdown forced by the government, we will comply to the extent necessary. But we will keep our team.

In the last two decades, Americans have been through 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and now we face this global pandemic. How much worse is this crisis? How are you personally dealing with your own anxiety?

I think the global pandemic is harder than the 9/11 attack and the 2008 financial crisis, because we are now combining prevention with reaction and recovery. There is no clear distinction among these. With other crises, the event happens and you respond to it. At present, this pandemic is an ongoing event.

What’s the most surprising response to this crisis that you’ve seen either from friends and family, local and state government, or the federal government? What’s the most disappointing response that you’ve witnessed? What’s the most inspiring response that you’ve noted so far? What is uniquely positive and American about our united response?

I have been pleased to see my fellow citizens taking common sense steps, such as frequent hand washing and respecting social distancing, to help prevent the spread of this virus. I am concerned that our state government may be taking a “one-size-fits-all” approach and response, failing to recognize dramatic differences among our 36 counties.

If you would like to read the entire interview, click on this link at The Oregon Transformation Newsletter