Welcome to the Snap-on Incorporated 2022 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. We are delighted that we can all be back in person again this year, so it's great to see everybody. My name is Richard Miller. I am the Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of Snap-on, and I will be your parliamentarian for today's meeting. At this time, I would ask that everybody please turn off your cell phones. With that, I call the 2022 Annual Meeting of Shareholders to order, and they gave me a gavel. People in the building will get very tired of that soon. Each of you should have received the order of business and the rules of order, and I would ask that you please abide by those rules. It is now 10:04 A.M. on April 28, 2022. The polls are officially open.
If anyone has not yet voted and wishes to do so, let's ask your vote. The Inspectors of Election, Abby Cowart and Fred Papenmeier of Computershare, are in the back of the room and can help you with that. Attending today's meeting in person are the following members of the Board of Directors. I will ask each of them to stand when I call your names. David Adams, Executive Chairman of Curtiss-Wright Corporation. Karen Daniel, Retired Division President and Chief Financial Officer of Black & Veatch Corporation. Ruth Ann Gillis, Retired Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of Exelon Corporation. James Holden, Snap-on's Lead Director and Retired President and Chief Executive Officer of Guy Moore Chrysler Corporation. Nathan Jones, Retired President, Worldwide Commercial Consumer Equipment Division of Deere & Company. Henry Knueppel, Retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Regal Beloit Corporation.
Dudley Lehman, Retired Group President, Kimberly-Clark Corporation. Gregg Sherrill, Retired President and CEO of Tenneco Inc. Donald Stebbins, Retired President and Chief Executive Officer of Superior Industries International. Nick Pinchuk, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Snap-on. Nick will present an update of the performance of your company at the conclusion of our formal business. Also here today are Eric Kulju and Emily Von Durn representing Deloitte & Touche LLP. They will be available to answer any questions after the meeting. We have an affidavit that notices the meeting was mailed as required, and it will be incorporated into the meeting minutes. Seeing that all shareholders have had an opportunity to vote, will the Inspectors of Election please confirm that all ballots have been counted? Thank you. It is now 10:06 A.M., and the polls are officially closed.
There are 53,460,885 shares of Company Common Stock, each having one vote on each proposal. I have been advised by our Inspectors of Election that we have a quorum with more than 87% of all shares outstanding represented at the meeting. Voting results are stated as a percentage of the stock represented at the meeting unless otherwise stated. We have three official pieces of business today. First, the election of our directors. The board has nominated the following candidates to serve until the 2023 Annual Meeting: David C. Adams, Director since 2016; Karen L. Daniel, Director since 2005; Ruth Ann M. Gillis, Director since 2014; James P. Holden, Director since 2007; Nathan J. Jones, Director since 2008; Henrik W. Knueppel, Director since 2011; W. Dudley Lehman, Director since 2003; Nicholas T. Pinchuk, Director since 2007; Gregg M. Sherrill, Director since 2010; and Donald J. Stebbins, Director since 2015.
Each of the director nominees received votes in favor of at least 86% of the shares outstanding, and therefore each has been elected. Our second item of business is the ratification of the Audit Committee's selection of Deloitte & Touche as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2022. Over 92% of the shares represented voted in favor of this proposal. Therefore, the Audit Committee's selection of Deloitte has been ratified. The last item is the advisory vote to approve the compensation of Snap-on's named executive officers as presented for shareholder approval in the proxy statement. As an advisory vote, this proposal is non-binding on the company. Since over 89% of the votes cast voted to approve, the Snap-on named executive officer compensation by the non-binding resolution is hereby approved. This completes our official business.
It is now 10:09 A.M., and the meeting is formally adjourned, and I get to use my gavel again. At this time, we will have a short video on Snap-on. Enjoy.
Let me tell you of a people essential to the serious and unique to the world, standing firm against the threat, preserving all we know amid the gloom. We are Snap-on. We are those people, and we have been for 100 years. To put on it with a spark, and the spark was an idea. We are the stewards of that spark.
We have been for 100 years.
The idea forged a dream. We are the keepers of that dream.
We have been for 100 years.
The dream changed lives. We are the shapers of those lives.
We have been for 100 years.
We are the wielders of insight and experience. We summon the future out of the present.
Now and for many years to come.
We are the providers of repeatability and reliability. We make that promise every day.
Now and for many years to come.
There's a lot of precision in what we do with the aircraft, and the Snap-on tools obviously help us to do that. I think it says a lot to our clients, our passengers, our customers when they see Snap-on, and they know that we're maintaining the aircraft to the best that we can.
We are the bringers of prosperity and satisfaction. We create jobs and build careers.
Now. And permanently yes to them.
I've used Snap-on for about 45 years. You look around this shop, there's a lot of Snap-on stuff. A lot. We have three generations here in this shop that use it. Hopefully, my sons can take it on and do what they want to do. I'm so proud.
We are the bearers of pride and dignity. We celebrate the hands, the minds, and the hearts of working men and women.
Now and for many years to come.
I feel like I change lives every day, every week. When I deliver toolbox, we just delivered a toolbox here, and to see that look in that guy's face of, "I own this Snap-on toolbox now, and I helped him get there." It's like I'm helping him with his dream. I'm delivering his dream, and he'll never forget it. I'll never forget it. It's so rewarding, and I think it's what helps me get up every morning and helps me go every week. It's just a feeling that it's hard to explain. It's a very gratifying feeling. I really enjoy that.
This is Snap-on. We are the people of work, enabling the makers and fixers, building the society we know. Now and for many years to come.
I've got customers out there that are up in their 80s that I've taken care of for over 30 years. They don't let their kids go anywhere else. Something needs to be done. It's got to go to Bill's. They know it's done right here, and I try to do the best work I can. Yeah, I do take pride in it. Wear a lot of Snap-on stuff: belts, boots, shoes, everything. It's all Snap-on when I'm working. People know who I am and what I work with.
We are the sign of the special.
Now and for many years to come.
Wherever our troops deploy is where we go as well. Our tools need to be along that same line. They need to be strong. They need to last. The precision and quality of the tools need to be up to par with what we do.
We are the pavers of progress.
Now and for many years to come.
Actually having the best possible product, a lot of pride in it, and we make it. We manufacture it. We distribute it. We service it. I can't think of any other product that comes close to that. You create rapport. You build trust. Together, you grow through his early years of development. You look back on it years later, and it almost seems like an accomplishment that you both were able to work together on.
We are the deliverers of dreams.
Now and for many years to come.
It was sounding and smiling when the little guy comes out and looks at that and just sees it. It was just awesome.
Congratulations. You're now a Snap-on toolbox owner.
We are those who make a difference, moving the world amid the storm.
Now and for many years to come.
This is Snap-on. We are essential to the serious and unique to the world, and we have been for 100 years, celebrating a century of success.
100 years.
100 years.
100 years.
100 years.
100 years.
100 years.
Yeah.
I wanted to try that just to see. I'm sure I could do it better than Rich Miller here. Look, welcome back, everybody. Isn't it great to be back together? I was just standing out in the hallway greeting everybody when they came in, and I thought how wonderful it is to see everybody. Although we were together for the 100th anniversary in the parking lot, it's a tremendous time. I want to welcome you to our annual meeting. It's an extraordinary event always, and I always, always look forward to it. Now, this is a company that you can see some of the emotion in the video, but it's a company that was founded more than 100 years ago now, and it was founded on a timeless principle: the respect for the dignity of work.
All that time, we have been enlisted in the idea of making special tools, making tools that enable working men and women to accomplish tasks that are critical and cannot fail at. The need for repeatability and reliability is extreme and allows them to move the world forward. It's a cause that is as relevant today as it was all those 100 years ago. I'm here to tell you that this is a company that's going to be the run-through my whole speech. This is a special company, one that has a storied history. It has an encouraging now, and we have an exciting future. I can tell you, and I can tell you we've had some difficult times in these days. The once-in-a-100-year withering of the COVID, the daughters of the COVID, inflation, and supply chain disruption. We've had interruptions. We've had all kinds of things.
We have had war in Ukraine, and we have lockdowns in China. Yet we've come through it stronger. You can look at the numbers, and I ask you to judge yourself, and we have come through this stronger than when we entered. I'm here to tell you today, and I'm proud to tell you today, that your company has never, ever been stronger. Before I get before things go off the rails later, I only have three hours of the board meeting to survive. I'd like you to give the board of directors another round of applause for no other reason than to save me. Actually, our board is a terrific board. It's filled with eminent people who have been steadfast throughout this period and have created the underpinning that have allowed us to get through it all. I stand here.
I was sitting here looking at my notes, but also I was listening and watching the video. I have to tell you, every time I see it, it's terrific. We duplicated some of the stuff we did at the SFC and out in the parking lot because we thought it would look better here today for you. We also wanted to, one more time, talk about our 100th anniversary. This is the last official event. We'll recognize the 100th anniversary, and it was something special. The solitary trumpers heralding the first days of Snap-on's second century and toning the compositions of Philip Glass, which he wrote for the 1984 Olympics. I've been waiting 38 years to use it. It's haunting, and it seems to awaken emotion. I think it does. You have the litany of endorsements and testimonies from franchisees and technicians, our franchisees and our customers.
You have the responses by the people of Snap-on, those who have been here a long time declaring, "And we have been for 100 years," and new people, the younger generation vowing now and for many years to come. The words, the words. Let me tell you of a people essential to the serious and unique to the world, standing firm against the threat, preserving all we know amidst the gloom. That is the way it was. You can see the words of Brian Neil, a franchisee from Mendon, Illinois, down on the Missouri border. He says, "I feel like I change lives every day, every week." He believes it, and all of us believe it. Other words, like we are the wielders of insight and experience forged over decades but sharpened by the new. We are the bringers of prosperity and satisfaction.
We are the bearers of pride and dignity. We are the shapers of lives and the deliverers of dreams. These are the words that declare who we are. For Snap-on people, they ring with truth and emotion. Like I said in all these videos, and this one is no exception, we do not lean on outside consultants or marketing firms to author this video. We use people inside. In fact, I'd like to introduce to you now the producers of the Snap-on video. In the back of the room, I think Ms. Bridget Correa, Jeff Zuehls, and Sam Bottum. Stand up. Let's give them a round of applause because this is something special. Now, my attorneys have said that I must have everyone read in detail this following statement, this questionnaire-y thing, all right? That's enough. Okay. Let's go on from here.
We start every presentation at Snap-on. In fact, every major room at Snap-on has this placard in it. It declares who we are. We say our mission is to provide the most valued productivity solutions in the world. It declares our beliefs. We believe in non-negotiable safety, uncompromising quality, passionate customer care, innovation, and rapid continuous improvement. We have certain values. These are values everybody, the human race, should have. They're kind of natural law, but we declare them because we want to make sure that we always follow them. We believe in integrity and truth and respect and teamwork and listening. Our vision is to be the relationship of choice for all those we interact with. This is who we are. Those concepts have run through Snap-on from the very beginning. We were founded long ago, now, 100 years, 100-plus years.
It was founded. It really does say. The video says, "It started with a spark, and the spark was an idea. And the idea forged a dream, and the dream shaped lives." The idea was from an engineer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Joe Johnson. He got the idea to take five handles of different shapes: a crank, a key, and a lift, and put them together with 10 sockets of different dimensions. He said those five handles did the work of 50 tools and revolutionized tool sets all over this country. It was an innovation and a tradition of innovation that has been handed down to us, and we have tried to keep it alive. He did something else that was really special. I know many of you have heard this story, but I love to tell it, so I'm going to do it anyway.
He bypassed the normal use of distributors and told his salesmen to go direct to the customer and go into the garage and lay those five handles and 10 sockets out on green felt as if they were as precious as surgeon's knives, implying so that if the technician used these tools, he would imply to the world that he was doing something special, perhaps as special as a surgeon. The idea that the Snap-on, the sign Snap-on, is the outward sign of pride and dignity that working men and women take in their profession is what drives our corporation today. I'll show a Model T here in which some of those first tools were delivered. You'll see a version of it out here in the museum if you care to stop later.
One of the great things about this event and many events that we've had is we have living links to the founders with us. I'd like to introduce them. We have the grandson of Joe Johnson and his wife, Greg and Kathy Johnson. Greg has been with us. Greg was with us for almost 30 years, the VP of internal audit and the VP and controller. We have Sarah Tutsky, the granddaughter of Joe Johnson, and her husband, Paul, who was also with us for just over 30 years and was the vice president of EQS and the vice president of Western Region. Stand up, ladies and gentlemen, and let's give them a round of applause. Living links, living links to our founders. It makes us special.
We like to say that I think one of the underrated things about a company, and I've been in a few good ones, is the power of place. Our place is Kenosha. It's the place we were here in the beginning. We started here in 1929. Here's the picture of the factory, the first factory in Kenosha. I'm still trying to figure out how it's oriented, but that's one of the first buildings here, moving in 1929. Since then, the people of this town, this city, has been the wellspring of our capability and energy. It has allowed the dream, the Snap-on company, to reach across a nation and a world. Part of that has been the support of the community. We have some community leaders here with us that I'd like to recognize. We have John and Cameron Swallow from Carthage College.
We have Bryan Albrecht from Gateway College. We have Debbie Ford from Parkside, places that give us tremendous resurgence to our business and our employee base, our associate base. We have Samantha Kirkman, the new county executive. We have our own homegrown community hero, Ms. Terri Wruck, who's been with us 27 years and just has received the Kenosha Susan B. Anthony Award for community service. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand up and let's give them a round of applause. Thank you all. Snap-on is a company that celebrates the makers and the fixers. These are the people who actually, during the difficult times, historians will say that America and countries, in fact, all over the world are dependent on the people who actually make and fix things. The more of these people you have, the better and stronger your company has, the country has.
The U.S. has benefited from this over the years. We can see it, how people like Rose Will Monroe from the hills of Kentucky went to Willow Run and became known as Rosie the Riveter. Her sisters and brothers made the industrial substrate that allowed America to win one of the wars it could not afford to lose. Just in the last threat, the great withering that is a virus, the people of work, the makers and fixers stood and maintained their posts, keeping the societies from disintegrating, while we maintained and defeated the great COVID. This is one of the reasons we follow this. We here are the people of work. Through those difficulties, through the difficulties, I said we emerged stronger. I am going to show financial or numerical evidence of that.
How we did this over all these years is we rise, and we rise on product, on brand, and people. During the COVID, during the virus, when things were dark and there was a lot of fear, the makers and fixers were meeting that fear with vigilance and accommodation. We kept investing in our product, our brand, and our people. I like this picture particularly because it has some of the people from the Murphy plant, a great plant. We have Samantha Moore there and Rhonda Traver, who is a legend down there, and John Welborn. Our product is unique productivity solutions. Sometimes people think we are a hand tool company. We are. We have the best hand tools ever. You can see a bunch of them here, socket sets and wrenches and screwdrivers.
You can also see some insulated tools, which shows it's a kind of a harbinger of the electric vehicles, but you can also see diagnostic units. You can see power tools. You can see software. You can see some of the great and complicated undercar equipment products we have. We have a terrific stable of brands. Everybody knows about the Snap-on brand, even after all the outward sign of the pride and dignity that working men and women take in their profession. We also have Bahco in Europe. People say, "If I want an adjustable wrench, they say, 'Pass me the Bahco.'" Every year at the Sweden Rocks Festival, hundreds of people, hundreds of people literally line up to get tattoos, real tattoos, not temporary tattoos on their body of a fish and hook. We have Challenger. We do the same thing for Snap-on, by the way.
We have Challenger lifts. We have AutoCrib tool management systems. We just acquired Dealer-FX. We have a number of different brands that create the same type of pride. And then we have great people. You can see these people. Look here, the Algona Tool Factory in Algona, Iowa. It's a place where you can't get there from here. It's a four-hour drive and a six-hour flight, that kind of thing. By the way, did you know I had to stop here now? Kenosha, it's quite a place. I love Kenosha, but do you realize that it's colder in Kenosha today than Anchorage, Alaska? This is not good. Not good. I don't know what's going on. Okay. All right. We have people from Algona. We've got people from Mitchell 1. The array at the bottom is Mitchell 1.
There are the Tools Group engineers, and then there are power tools engineers at the SFC. We have a great team. We rise. We rise on our product, our brand, and most importantly, on our people. We have emerged stronger from the virus than we entered. I have the numbers to prove it right now. All I can say to these numbers is, "Boom, Jack-a-lacka!" I got that from Stripes. Okay. Let's take a look at some of the numbers. I want you to there's two things about the numbers here. You can look at the numbers. I think these are the EPS numbers, but I want you to look at the red line for a minute. Okay. We are going to go from 2019 to 2020 to 2021. The numbers are what? $12.41, $11.44 down in the virus, and then $14.92.
I was relieved at this number because it's kind of easy to remember for an American, if you know what I mean. Okay. These numbers are up what? 30.4% versus the 2021 numbers, up 30.4% versus 2020, and 20.2% versus 2019. Pretty good. Double digits versus the pre-COVID level. Look at the sales. $3.73 billion, I believe it says, in 2019. Then it dropped a little bit, not so much, to $3.59 billion, but last year, a record. In 2021, a record. First time ever over $4 billion. $4 billion, $250 million represents, I think, it's 18.4% growth over 2020 and 14% over 2019. If you do something here, and the financial geniuses do something called organic, throwing out currency and other things, and it's 15.1% and 10.4% for those years. You have those. Look at the operating margin.
This is the profit as a percent of sales. So it was pretty good. 19.2% in 2019 went to 17.6% and went up 20%, a record again. I'm going to show you a trend of this later, and I preview tip. It's pretty good. But what I want you to see is the red line. See the red line? Each of these diagrams has had a red line. And what we said when we were in the nadir of the virus, second quarter of 2020, we had an earnings call, and we told everybody, "We think we're going to have a V-shaped recovery." And the analysts kind of chuckled, I think, a little bit, thinking, "How the heck is anybody going to have a V-shaped recovery in this pandemic?" Well, we did.
Each of these, the EPS, the sales, this OI margin, operating income margin shows the V-shaped recovery in visit terms. The people who delivered that, along with all the people in this room in some ways, but the leaders of this are here with me, and I'd like to introduce them. First of all, from Scranton, Pennsylvania, for whatever that's worth, our Chief Financial Officer and chief Nick Pinchuk critic, Mr. Aldo Pagliari. From Calcutta, India, our Chief Development Officer and recently of Lake Forest, Illinois, Mr. Anup Banerjee. Let me see if I can get this right. From South Jersey, the President of our Repair Systems & Information Group, Mr. Tom Ward. From parts unknown, also known as Iowa, the President of our Tools Group, Mr. Tim Chambers. From the Basque Country, the President of our Commercial Group, Mr. Jesus Arregui.
We are here in Kenosha, but just like the hunters, we're not really fully alone because we have somebody up here, I think, soon will appear. Yoo-hoo. Here he is. From Shanghai, China, at a standstill, locked down in his apartment for four weeks, Mr. James Ong. James. Now you got to hear this. James, how many times you've been in quarantine?
Six. Six times.
How about is this what?
Lucky seven lockdown.
Lockdown, right. And how many days can you go out of your apartment? What do you go out of your apartment for?
Only for the COVID test.
Only for a COVID test. How many times a day are you getting COVID tests?
Two times. One using the hand hygiene at home. Before you go downstairs, then you take the PCR downstairs.
Is it true that you risk arrest when you go out to dump the garbage?
You are not supposed to dump the garbage.
I see. Right. By my account, Mr. James Ong, by the way, has never had the virus. He has been in quarantine for more than 160 days in two years for Snap-on. Give him a round of applause. Good to see you, James. Okay. Those are the kind of V-shaped recovery. Let us look at the trend here. You got a trend here? This is the trend of the sales. I think we go back to 2010. Sales and operating income margin. I kind of like it. Starts at $2,620,000,000, $2.62 billion.
It goes to $2 billion, $850 million, $2.85 billion, then $2.94 billion, then $3.06 billion, then $3.28 billion, then $3.35 billion, then $3.43 billion, then $3.69 billion, then $3.74 billion, then $3.73 billion, then the average is $3.59 billion, and coming out $4.25 billion. Nice trend. Look at the operating income margin. Maybe even better. I do not know. It is a nice margin. Starts out at, I think, 12.1%. In other words, 12.1% of all sales dollars became profit. 14.5%. 15.6%, 18.1%, 19.3%, 19.3%, 19.4%, 19.2%, 17.6%, and we ended up this year at 20%. These things do not happen. I am looking at this trend, and I can tell you the people who know me a long time, the people who really know who I am, recognize that I am the fortunate successor of greater predecessors. We have here in the audience representatives and some of my predecessors.
First of all, from the seventh Norm Lutz, the seventh president of Snap-on, who was here and stood in this place in the late 1970s and started Snap-on with the New York Stock Exchange. We have his daughter and her husband, Susan and Bill Kenyon from all the way from Libertyville, Illinois, but they grace us with our presence all the time. Stand up, Susan and Bill. Let's give them a round of applause. Now, the man who needs, I think, no introduction. I'm going to give him one anyway. My former boss. The man who gave us so much. He taught us how to rediscover who we are. He started our safety program. He gave us the words rapid continuous improvement. He got us moving on his way. To the extent we see this trend from 2010, it is built on his work.
Let me introduce my former boss, my current counselor, my ongoing friend, the legendary Mr. Jack Duane Michaels. I have some more trends to show you. Look at the, I think we have an EPS, an earnings per share trend. I'll put this up for a reason. Look at 2010. The earnings per share in that time, I think, was $3.19, right? Okay. I want you to remember that number. Let's put that away in our pocket. $3.19, 2010. Okay. Then $4.71, then $5.20, right? Then $5.93, then we go on from there. $5.93, then $17.14, then $18.10. $18.10. Then $11. At $18.10. Then we go to $12.44, then $11.44, $12.41, then $11.44, then $14.92. Let's talk about our retirees for a minute. To the extent we can get these kinds of numbers, we stand on the shoulder of our retirees.
We have some of them here. We have Barb Griffin, who everybody knows. She was with us 24 years, and she was with the Tools Group in finance and delivered so many of the Tools Group's performance. Very important to us. We have Dan Casper, who was the Director of Global Tax, has decided in retirement to go to genealogy, and I'm worrying that he's going to look and discover that he was descended from a Roman tax collector. We have Mr. Rich Caspi and his wife, Michelle. Rich Caspi was with us 37 years, and most people, he's been gone about three years, but in general, most people thought he was retired for 40 during that period. Stand up, ladies and gentlemen. We stand on your shoulders. Okay. Now, Snap-on is a special characteristic. We paid dividends.
We started paying dividends in 1939. The dividends, we started paying a dividend in 1939, and we've paid a dividend every quarter since then, and we have never reduced it, which means it is one of the longest serving, longest strings of uninterrupted, unreduced dividends in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. In fact, we may have the longest characteristic for the New York Stock Exchange because of these dividends activity. You can see this here. Starting way back in 2010 of $1.32 and rolling on $1.30, $1.40, $1.58, $1.95, $2.20, $2.54, $2.95, $3.43, $3.93, $4.47, and $5.11. In fact, we raised the dividends by 15.4% last quarter or the fourth quarter of last year. This is a solid record that is difficult to match. I haven't mentioned in any of this the finance company.
The finance company has done pretty well in the same kind of thing that I've shown you in other places, where you see our revenue for the finance company was $337.7 million in 2019, and then it went to $348.9 million and $348.9 million again, and then our profitability was $245.9 million, $248.6 million, and then $272 million up in 2020. So the finance company has made contributions to all of this. In effect, if you see this, you see the V, you see the trend, almost the uninterrupted trend, except for a little bit down during the height of the COVID. You see that your company has emerged from the great withering, the virus, the once in a hundred-year pandemic, stronger than ever before. Now, where are we going? We say we have an exciting future. We say the way to the future is long runways.
Runways for growth and runways for improvement and runways for growth. Let's talk about the runways for improvement. They hearken back to our beliefs. Remember I said we believe in non-negotiable safety and uncompromising quality. Our runways for improvement are just this. We call it Snap-on Value Creation. These are the processes which move us forward: safety, quality, customer connection, innovation, and rapid continuous improvement. Let's talk about safety. You ask if you're a public company and you're financially oriented, what are you thinking about safety? First of all, you want to keep your people safe. Secondly, when you make tools for working men and women, if you can't keep your own people safe, what does that say about your tools? We're proud of this record. The surveillance trend was started by Jack.
Going all the way back to the beginning, or now maybe 15 years ago, we're 90% less likely at Snap-on to have an accident today than we were just a little bit over a decade ago. We have 102 facilities in Snap-on, and 81 of them did not have a lost-time accident. Quality. There's a lot of ways to measure quality. You can measure quality by assembly critical defects or factory critical defects or a number of different ways or warranty or so on. We like to measure it by how people react to us. Liana Acevedo from New Jersey, a three-year motorcycle mechanic. She, by the way, has a blog called Girls Who Wrench. Very interesting. She loves her job. She says one of the reasons why she's able to do it, what inspired her to do it was use great tools like Snap-on.
The quality of Snap-on tools. We have other people who say things like, "Your tools are special to me. They're my tool of choice, and they're of high quality." We have people look on the bottom of this slide, the birthday cake. That's not a birthday cake. Sorry. It's a wedding cake. I think we showed pictures in the beginning where wedding parties are posing in front of Snap-on signs. We have two pictures here, but I have many of these of newborn babies who the parents of those newborn babes decide to put a Snap-on wrench in their hands as the first thing because they believe what the baby touches first will influence their lives for better or worse. They believe in Snap-on.
We have a box where grieving people ask us to send those small toolboxes so they can enshrine their loved one's ashes in it. The outward sign of pride and dignity in beads. I have asked myself, how did this come about? It certainly comes about from the beginning. It has nothing to do with me, of course. The thing is that it comes about from the beginning. In some ways, people join the company, and you see the progression. When people come to the company, we are going to have some new people in a minute. They come probably for a job. You have to have a job. You have to keep your family or yourself warm and safe and dry. Those people contribute energy to it. When I spoke of the wellspring of energy and capability from Kenosha, that is what I meant.
But then after a while, they're here, and they launch. They realize, "I can make a career out of this. I'm going to learn things. I'm going to apply a trade like leadership." We have leaders here in the first row. They are the people who lead us and channel the energy over these difficult times. Then there are the special people. Not so unusual here, but they are special to us who give us not a job, not only a career, but a life. They're with us for a long time. Over that time of years, over that expanse of years, they are the people who influence the culture of the company. Their characteristics is what make this company what it is over time.
The people we have who have been here decades are the reason why people see Snap-on tools as so strong, continuing that activity. It is one of our great strengths, not only their experience, but the influence they have on us and others. It is why people make wedding cakes out of our tool trucks and put our wrenches in the hands of their newborn and bury their ashes in it. I have three of them here that I want to introduce to you. First, I want to introduce the Vice President of our sales organization. I want them to stand up individually. The Vice President of our sales organization who has been here 35, North American Tools Group Organization and Franchising, Mr. Jeff Howe, 34 years. Jeff, stand up. I have Ms. Jodi Guric, an expediter too in this building.
She's lived here in Kenosha a long time, and she has a daughter, Erica, who's about to become a veterinarian in practice here. I'm giving her a little boost there. She's been with us 46 years. Jodi, stand up. I have a man who has influenced the trajectory of our technology, a graduate of the University of Michigan, one of the best metallurgists in the country, someone who, together with Rich Caspi, taught me my first lessons about Snap-on. His name is Gary Henning. He's here with his wife, Cindy, and his daughter, Ashley. He has been with us 48 years. Gary, Cindy, Ashley, stand up. Let's give them a round of applause. These are the things that make quality in Snap-on, you see. Our culture is influenced by the long-standing people we have. They become like us, and we become like them.
It's safety, quality, customer connection. We reach out. One of the reasons why Snap-on is effective is we understand what will make work easier, and we spend more time in more workplaces than anybody else. We have 4,800 franchisees. We have thousands of direct salesmen. We are in 700,000 repair garages around the world. We are in 3,700 technical schools making new technicians Snap-on customers for life. In this building, right here around this area, we have 4,000-plus customers visit us every year. All that idea, all that insight. Remember I started out by saying one of the words we have is insight and experience forged over decades, but sharpened by the new leads to great innovation and great new products. You can see some of these up here in terms of diagnostics, in terms of software, in terms of hand tools and power tools and equipment.
We have awards. We had two top Motor Top 20 awards as best tools last year. We had two P10 innovation awards, and we had eight people's choice awards. Because when we ask technicians what are the best tools, they always say Snap-on. This leads to our engineering team. I have three engineers here who I'd like to introduce to you. First is David Doyle, who's an engineer in our tools group. I said yesterday to the board, one of the fastest-growing products here is our pliers business, and he was the engineer behind our long-nosed Talon Grip pliers. We also have Bob D'Agostino, who got a degree in physics in a town I know very well, Syracuse, New York, and is our director of algorithm development in the tools in the Conway factory for our aligners.
Let me tell you, in another life, I worked on the guidance system that landed the Viking probe on Mars in 1976. I already mentioned it because the subsequent two probes crashed. I worked on the guidance system, and I got it there. I can tell you that the mathematics and the algorithms around alignment in a car garage or everything is as complicated as their inertial navigation. He's been with us 11 years. David's been with us five years. I have Charles Franjak, who's been with us six years and is responsible for much of our new electronic power tools. He used to be a baker. I want to give him special thanks because on Fat Tuesday, he brought over a whole bunch of paczki. They were good. I do not know why I bothered eating them.
I should have just applied them to my waist. They were pretty good. Okay, gentlemen, please stand up. Let's give our engineers a round of applause. Finally, remember safety, quality, customer runways for improvement, safety, quality, customer connection, innovation, and rapid continuous improvement that is making your business better. If you look at this trend, you can see back in 2006 or so, the operating income margin, in other words, the percent of sales that went to profit, was 6.5%. Through rapid continuous improvements, every day, we have people in every site that works on this. We have teams working constantly to make things better. Snap-on people get up every day and think about how to make things better. We have a number of different bigger events.
Even once a year, the management team goes into a factory and works at something and learns more about improvement and tries to help the factory. It takes the factory six months to recover from that because it's okay. In fact, look at the results. 6.5% to 20%. 1,350 basis point improvement in a world where people kill for five basis points. Rapid continuous improvement. Our way forward is just continue to do that, to keep pushing those processes of safety, quality, customer connection, innovation, and rapid continuous improvement. There's something else. When we thought about this, when we tried to figure out how we would go forward, we thought about Snap-on. The Snap-on heritage is about a company that makes wrenches, sells it through vans to mechanics. We do it better than anybody else. Our wrenches are great. Our franchisees are tremendous.
We are the darling of the mechanics. This is a narrow description of what we do. Actually, what we do is we observe work in the workplace. It does not have to be a garage. It can be a flight line. All that has to happen is it has to be critical. The product we sell does not have to be a wrench. We now know it could be software or under-the-car equipment or power tools. There are a whole array of products. We can sell a product. We observe work. We define a product or devise a product that will make work easier, and we sell it into critical spaces. That is where the penalty for failure is high and the need for repeatability and reliability justifies a Snap-on-level product. We do not have to sell it through the brand, although we do very well.
We can sell it direct and through distributors. This has resulted in us understanding what our principal value-creating mechanism is at Snap-on. You can see it right here. Actually, I love the picture of the patent wall. That is our patent wall down there. In case you were wondering, there are 3,332 patents on that wall right there. Each one of those little blocks is a patent we have gotten. Our principal value-creating mechanism is to observe work, figure out what will make it better, and turn out that tool. That is why when products change, we end up having a very, very target-rich environment. This led us to come up with our runways for growth, which are enhance the van channel. We are in the van channel already. We got to make it better.
If you look at the numbers of the van channel, you would believe that's true. Van with repair shop owners and managers, there's a customer. The van channel sells to the technicians. The repair shop owners and managers are standing right next to them, but they love Snap-on. Extend to critical industries. Roll the Snap-on brand right out of the garage and use our other brands there where people are working on critical stuff. I mean, the military, when the 50-caliber bullets are going overhead, I think that sounds pretty critical to me, and therefore they're looking for a solution that'll work. Build in emerging markets. Talk about enhance the van channel. We want to build the metrics, make the van drivers stronger. So the reach, actually, is what we want to do, and it's working that way. We're getting better. Give them products.
Give a range of products. We now have 4,000 products on the van, and when the guy pulls out the catalog, he's got 40,000 products in that catalog that he can sell to the customers. Try to make it more efficient because, after all, the van driver sells directly to technicians in only 24 hours of the day and 7 days a week. We have a lot of franchisees. We have 4,800, actually. It's about 3,500 in the United States. We keep turning them over, not turning them over, but introducing new people. I have with us a new franchisee from Kenosha, Mr. Wayne Cole. He's back there with Greg Mann. Stand up. He's been with us. He's been a franchisee only a year and a half. Take a look at the future of our franchise business.
Expand with repair shop owners and managers, Tom Ward's business, the RS&I business. Basically, we have a lot of understanding of parts and services. We want to leverage that. We want to teach the owners and managers. The cars keep changing. We want to teach the owners and managers how to keep up with the technology, arm them with the product, and also, frankly, teach them how to run the business. We want to keep adding products to that portfolio we have. Dealer-FX is the latest one. That business was up 13.3% in a quarter, just the last quarter. Growing well. Extend to critical industries.
Basically, what this is, is find places like the military, aviation, oil and gas, mining, wind, places where customers have to where the task is critical, and learn the business by observing the work and then turning out product lines that will do this. Last year, we brought out more than 4,000 products for this customer base. Then build in emerging markets. The whole thing about emerging markets, you're talking about them all. China is kind of down now because they're all locked out. 400 million people, by the way, are locked in their houses in China. China isn't looking too good, but we're still talking about India and Thailand and other places like this. It's about building manufacturing capacity, building product that fits those people, and finding a distribution system that will have it. We're working in this situation. This is our way forward.
Part of the reason why we believe so much is we keep adding new people, people who have energy and capability. I'd like to introduce some of them now. Right over here. I think they're sitting over here in the second row. We have a guy named Nick Freelove, who's the data coordinator with the marketing. I like his name, by the way. The first name, not the second name. Nick is kind of a not a good name. Good start. He's been with us a couple of years. We have Mr. Deepak Trisal, who is our manager of sourcing. He's been with us for less than a year. By the way, Nick is from some school. I don't know if anybody Iowa State. Did anybody ever go to Iowa State? Tim Chambers went to Iowa State, so he's from Iowa State. Same school. Weak football team.
Okay, Deepak Trisal. He's the manager of strategic sourcing, and he's been with us for less than a year. He has the distinction, to my knowledge, of being the only manager at Snap-on that has declared cricket as his favorite sport. We have Trayvon Grant from back here, back in the Kitting Center, who's the lead coordinator there. A Milwaukee Bucks fan, has been with us for a couple of years, and was my partner for a period of time on the rapid continuous improvement event we conducted in the back. We have Jordan Leadingham from EQS, who has been with us a couple of years and has graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
These are the kinds of new people, great new people, that we have added to our business and are the energy and capability and drive that will underpin our future. Stand up, ladies and gentlemen. Let's give them a round of applause. One of the things that looking to the future, I think one of the things we have is that if you look at this chart, it shows the growing of the car park. If you look at when it was in the beginning, it was 230 million cars, and then it rolls out 280 million now. The big thing is the aging of the vehicles. 9.5 years now, it's over 12. This kind of trend creates this kind of tailwind that allows our business to be stronger. The real tailwind has to do with the complexity and technology that's rolling through the vehicles.
One of the things, as I said, we go into a garage, we observe it, we observe the work, and we create a new tool. Part of the things that drive this is continuing change. If you think about it, this is the golden age of auto repair. Change is abundant. You always hear about electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are going to need tools just like the other vehicles. There is no evidence that there is less service associated with them. You have electric vehicles. Not only do you have electric vehicles, the electric vehicles, you have introduced new electric vehicles, and there are new plug-in hybrids, and there are new versions of the hybrid. It is going to be decades if they eventually replace the internal combustion engine. The garages are going to become dizzyingly complex associated with just the drivetrain.
You have all kinds of new features, a lot of them associated with autonomous cars. They call them advanced driver assist systems, things like lane departure warning. This creates more complexity in the garage. If you doubt this, think about this. Your car is now a neural network of sensors to keep you on the road, no lane departure, and so on. If you doubt that, bang your bumper sometime and then see what it costs you to get it repaired. This, I tell you, is music to our ears. We have an exciting—like I said, we started out by saying we have a storied past, an encouraging now, and an exciting future. We do. What confirms that we are on that path, I think, is our first quarter numbers. Take a look at these. $1,097,800,000 sales, up 8% organically. Profitability, profitability, 20%.
Remember, it was an all-time high of 70 basis points from the prior quarter. The earnings per share, $4, up 14.3% year-over-year. Now, remember I showed you that long chart. I said, "Remember the number $3.17?" That means that in the year 2010, our full year, four-quarter number for profitability was $3.17. This year, our one-quarter profitability number was $4. Quite a bit more. This was done against some difficult times. COVID is still here. Still here. You can see it in the U.K., the lockdowns in China, and so on. We have, as I said before, the descendants of the COVID, of the results of the COVID, which is inflation and supply chain disruption. Try buying chips or getting steel these days. Not so easy. We have the war in Ukraine disrupting some of our markets.
We have the lockdowns in China occurring, and we just had a system interruption. I would like to introduce you to some of the special people who have guided us through this. First of all, the quarterbacks of our response to the COVID, Ms. Mary Bauerschmidt and Raul Colon. Stand up. We have supply chain problems, and we have from our staff, our Vice President of Strategic Sourcing, the man who finds all this stuff when we cannot find it and tells the suppliers they shall not pass when they try to give us extraordinary price increases, Mr. Govan Aurora. As everybody is acutely aware, we had a system interruption, and we dealt with it. We shook it off. I would like to introduce you to the captains of our effort against that, Ms. June Lemerand and Ms. Heather Wu Lao. Stand up, please.
That's our story. I mean, we're a company that is celebrating the makers and fixers. That's what we do. We have emerged from the virus stronger than when we entered. We have our tailwinds in terms of our essential industry. All the things we do are critical and therefore cannot let off. If they do, there is a problem because you need to keep society from disintegrating. We have new technologies rolling through this. We have a storied past and an encouraging now. I hope I have demonstrated to you that we have an exciting future rising on product, brand, and people. We are committed. We are engaged and enabled by the power of place we get from Kenosha. We are committed to Kenosha, and you can see the testimony to our commitment rising about 100 yards behind me outside.
We're committed to Kenosha now and for many years to come. Now, let's go to questions. All right. We'll have questions now. We have people roaming the floor here.
Hi, Nick.
How are you?
How are you doing?
Okay.
All righty. My question is, what is the status of Snap-on's pension plan, and how healthy is it?
Are you retired?
Nice.
Okay. Pension plan is solid. I mean, you're not supposed to make statements like this, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. I think we're in pretty good shape. We're well-funded. If you look at the basis of funded, I think we're well into the 90% range. Now we're overfunded now. That can go up and down because, as you know, Barb, it depends quite a bit on interest rates and a number of different things. We are committed to making a pension because we believe that we have been handed a great company by people like you and the people to your right, our retirees. To the extent we retire, we stand on your shoulders. It's part of our commitment to make sure that you're okay in your retirement.
If you can go out to Florida and party all the time and have those drinks with the umbrellas in them. Okay. Next question. Any other questions? Other questions?
Good morning.
Morning.
Walking in this morning, I couldn't help but admire the new building. First of all, congratulations on the beautiful new building.
Thank you.
If you could tell us a little bit more about it, when the move-in date might be, and are there any additional future building plans? Thank you.
Your guess is as good as mine on the move-in date. I think we're going to move in between now and August. We plan a ribbon-cutting in August. The purpose of the building is, remember I said the runway's for growth, enhance the van channel, expand what repair shop owners and managers, and extend the critical industries. Extending the critical industries means you have to have quite a bit of product, and you have quite a complicated product line. Some of our product lines aimed at the military or aviation are 100 or 200 items, have 100 or 200 items in it. It's what we assemble back here. As we build that business, we need more room to do that for both the product that feeds those lines and for the ability to do it.
As for other plans, we don't have any currently, but we do have land out here in the back. I don't know. We are committed to Kenosha. It's the wellspring of our energy and capability. All right. What else do we have?
Good morning.
Who's next?
Snap-on is.
They're fighting over it. This is good. All right. Yes.
Snap-on has been successful for the last 100 years. What do you see for the next 100 years? My grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be much interested.
Look, I think Snap-on is an extraordinary company that can get bigger. I mean, I think the whole idea of criticality seems to be becoming more and more important. One of the things that seems to be the hallmark of new equipment, everybody would think it'd be computerization and so on, and that's some of it, and we addressed that. But two things are at a premium these days: efficiency that emanates from precision. And precision means you need the kind of tools, either software or hardware, to adjust those precisely. Think about it. If you have, say, for example, on a car, you have an automatic parking system. Let's push the button and park, right? Parallel park, right? Okay. Bad idea if your car's out of alignment. Right? Crash. There are a lot of things like that that keep expanding the need for this. That's what we see.
You almost see not as much invention of mechanical things or even electronic things. You see optimization, and our products are tools of optimization. I see us getting better. I see us expanding into more critical industries. I see the repair industry getting more complex and needing more of our tools. As I said, there are getting more situations in the market, more different kinds of cars going forward, which will drive more needs for mechanics. You're already seeing that. The demand for mechanics is going up. I think that's probably where you're going to see us expand into precision, into critical industries. And 100 years from now, Snap-on will be more in aviation and oil and gas and those things, maybe even auto repair, but still be very strong in auto repair. I invite you to our 150th anniversary because we've got a time capsule.
At our 100th anniversary, out in the back, we filled the time capsule. We're going to bury it outside. When we have the 150th, we will bring that out. I hope you're there. I know that Snap-on will be here. All right.
Good morning, Mr. Pinchuk. I have a question. With the COVID lockdown in Shanghai and some other cities in China, how does this impact our business in China and also in Asia? Thank you.
If they stay locked down forever, it'll really affect our business. I think there are twofold questions. Shanghai itself locked down wouldn't be a problem, but the port of Shanghai being locked down is a problem. The fact that there are 400 million people, not just the 40 million residents of Shanghai that are locked down, can be a problem. That will affect a portion of our Asian business. It will affect shipments to the United States in terms of power tools and other things which we use and shipments all over Asia. Right now, there are ways to get around that, and we will be able to manage over that with minimal impacts in the near term. If it stays forever, we'll have to figure out how to resource from whatever's made in the plant that's near Shanghai. That's simply it.
I think the thing about there's almost nothing that will happen there that will derail us completely. Whatever happens, we'll just adjust to it and figure out how to do it. For example, if the Shanghai port is down for a long, long time and we have our Kunshan factory, which is not in Shanghai, comes up, we ship to other ports. It'll cost us more money. It's hard to assess how much cost that will be. Right now, the betting, though, is James, who I was just on the phone with, bets that this is going to end by May 5th, which is when the vacation ends in China. There's a vacation that's enacted pretty soon. In fact, I think it's May 1st onwards. After that, I think it'll open up. Then it's a question of how quickly will the ports clear.
That does not matter so much because we will send it to other ports. It will just be a matter of cost. That will not be so bad for us. We will continue to go and try to find offsets someplace else. I do not see it being a big factor. I said on my earnings call, it is always something. It is always something. Actually, that is why you have these guys in the front row. They are supposed to be able to figure this out. Okay.
You mentioned RCI. I'm a little familiar with that. Could you tell me something specifically that's happened in the last year in the Snap-on?
Sure. There's a lot of things, I think. RCI applies to a lot of things, but let's just say in the back here, we worked on the line which imprinted the new products that were coming out. I know it was laser. Worked on the new product. Gave the labels to the products that came off. We reorganized it so it could be done quicker, and we took time out of that situation. That's one thing. Other things are RCI's working, let's say, for example, our air conditioning business in Europe. Air conditioning business in Europe had difficulty because the chips they were using were in short supply, and they weren't able to deliver. The heat is coming. I can assure you, working in air conditioning, if you can't deliver early, you are out of the season. You don't sell anything because the demand is like this.
Over the last several weeks, they've been using RCI teams to redesign and figure out how to get chips, both where can you source the chips, what can you do to design, what can you do for delivery. They now have the same product, but with different chips in it, as functional as before, and they can deliver in time for the heating season. Those are examples. There are thousands of examples every year associated with this kind of thing. It's one of the reasons why the profitability went from 6.5% in 2006, I think it was, to 20% this year, 1,350 basis points improvement. It's because of all those incremental increases. Other companies look at better ways to process applications. Those are the kinds of things. Almost anything you can think of, you can find ways to improve it.
This is one of the real features of RCI. It taps the understanding of the people who actually work on something to say, "How could you do it better?" You worked on it. You make it better. That makes it more efficient. You can turn stuff out cheaper. You look at it again and say, "I can do it even better." Even better. It's amazing. It's worked throughout. It's one of the things that courses through the veins of our company. All right. Anything else? Yes.
Nick, I know you're expecting a question from me, but I don't really have a question. I just have a statement. As a retiree, every month, I get reminded how proud I am to be part of the Snap-on lifestyle because a check goes into my checking account. I don't see it. Sarah does.
yes.
I'm familiar with the phenomenon.
Yes.
I want to thank you and everyone involved with Snap-on because every time I see that come in, it reminds me of my pride to have been part of Snap-on. Thank you.
You are from the Johnson family. We really mean it when we said it started with a spark, and the spark was an idea, and the idea was, "Oh, Johnson. We are merely the stewards of the spark and the keepers of the dream. We stand on your shoulders because you were here for 30 years. So whatever we have today is in part because of what you contributed to us. We thank you." All right. What else? Do we have one over here?
Yes.
Good morning, Nick.
Morning.
I don't know if you remember me.
Or not.
Yes, I do. I won't reveal why I remember you, but okay. Yes. We were on a team together once.
Yeah, a few times.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's fun.
It was fun.
Yeah, it was fun.
Since I've been retired for five years, my wife really never knew what I did, but my question goes back.
She didn't know.
My question goes back to, what are you doing about the current supply chain problems?
Wow.
Aren't you in supply? Weren't you in supply?
Yeah.
Yeah. Right. We didn't have problems then.
Logan just whispered to me. He said our first step was to anticipate it and urge you to retire.
No, James Smith was one of our great people. He did a great job in this issue. I'm just funny with him. Look, here's what we're doing. To the extent, first of all, Snap-on has a natural advantage. Our supply chain is shorter. We tend to make in the markets where we sell. 80% of what we sell at the van is made here right in America. We're vertically integrated, which is a kind of a business term for meaning we don't buy that much. If you think about a hand tool plant like the Milwaukee plant, raw steel comes in the back of the plant and hand tool comes out. We add very little capital and labor to it, really. We work on it, and we have capital, but we don't buy much for it. So we have that natural advantage.
We have, oh, 85,000 SKUs, in other words, 85,000 products. We do not buy that much of any one particular thing, which means that if we are short of it, if we cannot find it, we can usually go on a spot market and buy it. Now it is more expensive. You eat the cost, and therefore you have to figure out how to deal with that cost. That is one of the things we do. We are very active in the spot market. Secondly, we have been very active in redesign. One of the things about management, as you know, I know you know this, I am just going to summarize it in a way. The balance between every manager, every business, there is a balance between what you are working on that is going to help you today and what you are working on so that you have help for tomorrow.
You can eat tomorrow. The balance between today and tomorrow is one of the things that inhabits every business. The realization is the path to tomorrow leads right through today. In these times, the energy that has to go to today has to rise because there's much more non-standard conditions, like not being able to get things that you were getting on a regular basis. The idea that our management team with alacrity can ride to the sound of guns and figure out what to do that day to solve the supply chain is really the secret associated with this. I got to go out and buy on the spot market. In other words, change what you do normally. Don't follow the process. Get out of it because in this time, alacrity speed is everything. That's the second thing.
Thirdly, if you look at the Tools Group, we control the customer interface. We can agilely market. To some extent, if we cannot get lemons, we try to sell oranges. That works. You have those three things. You have buying on the spot market, you have riding to the sound of guns, redesigning the product so you find things that are available and put them in your product so you do not have to depend on those things that are not. Finally, trying to market agilely, get people to buy what you actually have. I would say it is all about revving up the speed at which you react to things. By the way, if you look at the first quarter numbers, you start to believe that these guys are okay at it. All right. Any others?
Nobody wants to know who's going to win the NBA championship. You can guess who I think is going to win the NBA championship, right? The world champion Milwaukee Bucks will repeat this year, I believe. Right. Let me just close. I know I've been up here a long time, but I think how I want to close is this. This is a company. I want to reinforce what I said. We have come out of this great withering, and we have shouldered some tremendous dislocations in terms of supply chain, which Jean just talked about, and the inflation. In fact, now the lockdown in Shanghai and the war in Ukraine. Check moving onwards. Your company really is stronger than it's ever been. I think I would just summarize by saying I have done what I said I would do.
I have told you of a company stronger than it's ever been. A company that rises out of product, from wrenches to undercar equipment like aligners to power tools to tool storage cabinets to software. Product that is demanded and enables people. Product that is born out of the idea of insight and experience forged over decades, but sharpened by the new. I have told you of a company that rises on brand. That brand is stronger than it ever was. Mechanics say so. Parents of newborn babies say so. Grieving relatives of former mechanics who bury their ashes in our boxes say so. This is a special company. We rise on product, on brand, and on people.
I've also done what I said I'd do, or the video said I would do, in telling you of a special people who are essential to the serious and unique to the world, who stood firm in the virus, preserving all we know amidst the gloom. These are special people. These are the makers and fixers who we serve and the people in this company who do serve them. The makers and fixers are people who have delivered us in the worst of times and have propelled our country on to the heights that it is today. The people who have stood firm, keeping our society from disintegrating while we engaged and defeated the COVID. The makers and fixers. I told you of a company who focuses on that. We are a people of work.
We know one of the things we have determined is that the world we know, the way we move, where we live, the energy we raise, the way we move, the hopes we hold, and the dreams we dare are all shaped by work. We are the people of that work. We are enlisted in a cause that is as timeless as it was 100 years ago. My main message here is when I say Snap-on rises on its people, I mean everyone here. If we are a company, a company is a place where people come together to create a benefit for themselves and for others that they could not create individually. To do that, you need support from a wide range of people. In fact, this is true. Snap-on rises not just on one group. We enjoy the confidence of our investors.
We enjoy the commitment of our associates. We enjoy the conviction of our franchisees. We enjoy the faith of our customers. We enjoy the support of our community. Yes, we stand on the legacy of our retirees. When I say we rise on people, I mean everyone here, not just people who are members of Snap-on. I put up here the 100th plus. The 100th plus was to remind us that we passed through the COVID, to remind subsequent generations of Snap-on that we did pass through the COVID. This last celebration of the 100, I would simply say, let's celebrate the makers and fixers, the people who have kept our society moving. Let's celebrate who we are. We are the bearers of pride and dignity and dreams. Let's celebrate all of us. Let's celebrate all of us here, all who contribute.
Let's celebrate all the people of Snap-on, those who make a difference now and for many years to come. Thank you all for coming. I'll see you next year.