Our President, Rich Raquet Looks Back and Looks Forward

From a personal and professional perspective, this was a great year!

We added new clients and new projects

After the challenges of the pandemic, and recovery from it, 2023 felt for me to be a much more normal year. TRC realized its greatest growth in more than a decade. Existing clients challenged us with more of their strategic research challenges, and many new clients joined the fold.

We also added key research practitioners

Throughout the pandemic and the “great resignation”, we had virtually no turnover of our dedicated staff. In fact, we’ve added to our size throughout the last three years, but this year, we hired at a record pace. I’m thrilled at how our existing staff welcomed the newcomers and how together we are meeting the tremendous demand without our clients seeing any difference in the high level of service they are used to receiving from us.

We were more than ready for AI

Overall, a combination of new challenges, new people, and new tools have driven innovation here; I expect that will continue for many years to come. While AI captured headlines and many people by surprise, it is something we’ve been experimenting with for years. We’ve already applied it to our work and I expect this will only grow in the year ahead. AI will be the latest of a long line of new technologies that we have used to drive more impactful results for our clients.

But, was I ready to step back?

Personally, while I lost my “Novid” status in September (thankfully, my first case was a pretty mild case), my family and I were, for the most part, healthy and happy. The year started with my daughter moving into a new apartment in a safer neighborhood in Brooklyn (I’m still nervous, of course) and ended with my son buying his first house. (I’m his part time handyman.) I’m very lucky.

Gratitude, however, offers clarity

But as this year comes to an end, I am acutely aware of the fact that not everyone had a great year. Wars in various parts of the world show no sign of abating and here at home there are far too many people suffered from the union strikes, corporate downsizing, or unable to keep up with the still challenging inflation problem.

When the pandemic struck, we, at TRC, decided to donate to various food banks across the country. It is a way of thanking our clients for partnering with us and to thank our staff for doing such an amazing job uncovering insights. We continued this each year the last two years and I think this year it is needed more than ever.

To that end, we will be increasing our commitment and making donations totaling $20,000 to the food banks listed below. I remain amazed at how much good these organizations can do with every dollar they receive.

I hope that 2024 will bring health and happiness to you all!

1. Atlanta, GA Atlanta Community Food Bank
2. Bloomsburg, PA  Bloomsburg Food Cupboard
3. Hartford, CT Salvation Army Southern New England Division
4. Louisville, KY Dare to Care
5. Minneapolis, MN Second Harvest Heartland
6. Nashville, TN Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle TN
7. New York, NY City Harvest Home
8. Philadelphia, PA Philabundance
9. San Francisco, CA San Francisco-Marin Food Bank
10. Washington, DC Food Bank for the Washington, DC, Region
11. Chicago, IL Greater Chicago Food Depository