Arnold Zane

The GVCC looks forward to riding with new members Robert Evans, Arnold Zane, Peter Wessel and Paul Van Nest.

If you insist on trying to ride it out, Arnold Zane, president of Energy Club in Pacoima, recommends implementing an initial rollback to minimize your losses and shift people's thinking.

"You can cut overhead and staff expense without necessarily laying people off," he says."For example, You can institute wage and salary freezes, or go to rolling four-day weeks.But you have to find a way to get people's attention and send the message that it's no longer business as usual."

Arnold Zane, president of the Energy Club in Pacoima, echoes the need to develop new interests.But he recommends a lengthier period of exploration.

"Assuming you have a competent management team in place, why not take an extended hiatus of several weeks or even a few months?"he said.

"That would allow you to determine whether you truly enjoy having a lot of free time or just think you want it.On the other hand, you might discover you still love what you're doing but just need a change of pace.If so, you could bring someone on board to take over the day-to-day operations of the company, which would free you up to do what you enjoy most."

Arnold Zane, president of Energy Clubs, Inc., a snack food packaging company in Pacoima, feels that his TEC membership serves multiple purposes.

"TEC provides a good sounding board for your business issues, it strengthens basic concepts until they become a part of your business life and it reinforces ideas you have-or introduces new ideas-when deciding on a course of action," said Arnold.

One of the biggest benefits Arnold says he realizes from TEC is "just learning to run my company."When he joined TEC in 2000, Arnold had been in business about 16 years, had annual revenues of about $10 million, and was concerned that the size of the business was getting to be more than he could handle.

"After joining TEC, I had more confidence and I learned about delegating responsibility, realizing it was a liability, not a benefit, that I was trying to do all of the work," said Arnold."Once I started delegating, I saw a lot of improvement, and I know that has led to the increased growth."

With his company now at $20 million in annual revenues, Arnold says that TEC was a major factor in his ability to double the size of his business in less than five years.

Arnold Zane, President, Energy Club Inc., Pacoima