Lots of people talk about values. John Hannah lived his.

The story goes that one winter evening, John made a promise to his young daughter that they would go pick up the kitten for which, over the past few days, the little girl had been begging. However, the next morning the citizens of Saint Albans, West Virginia woke up to discover that almost two feet of snow had fallen during the night. Impossible to drive a car anywhere that morning, John told his daughter that they’d have to wait for the roads to be cleared before they could go to pick up the kitten, and that it was possible they’d have to wait another day or two. The reply he received was direct and clear: “But Daddy, you promised!…..”

Back in 1948 they didn’t count steps like many of us do today, but suffice it to say that John got all of his in that morning. Donning his boots and winter coat, he trudged just over two miles through the snow to pick up the small, all-white kitten, and brought it home to his daughter. The daughter’s name for the kitten? Snowball.

It is the decisions such as this, which often seem relatively small in the moment, that ultimately define us. John could have stayed home and stayed warm that morning. In time his daughter likely would’ve forgotten that she had to wait a day or two for the kitten. But then there would be no story of the man who would do anything to keep his promise to his daughter, nor the ripple effects of his example which have survived the passage of time. And the fact is, when people heard this story for the first time they weren’t really surprised, because that was just the kind of person that they knew John to be.

At JC Hannah we believe that those small decisions we make during the course of business is ultimately what will define us, too. Honesty… Integrity… Service. Lots of companies talk about it. For JC Hannah, it’s who we are. We look forward to earning your business, and more importantly your trust.

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