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Small Private CFO Winner: Scott Dendler, Assembled Products

2 min read

Scott Dendler believes in meticulous organization and planning. In his office at Assembled Products Corp. he has dry-erase boards to plan his daily duties. He said he doesn’t always finish his “to-do” list each day and laughs that he is “very rarely a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” type of guy.

Mr. Dendler, meet the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There were some times I was just shaking my head,” Dendler said. “It helps me stay calm if I can put it on a board in front of me. I can see every day, this is what we need to do to stay on task.

“2020 threw a curve ball every which way you went. There was no good way to navigate, but to stay on top of all the job announcements, federal announcements, state announcements. Research, research, research and get in front of it in everything we did — that was critical.”

Dendler’s experience and even-keel personality helped steer the company through the pandemic. Early in his career, Dendler said, he was more reactionary but time has taught him the wisdom of patience. “Now, it’s calm down and stay the course and make sure our ducks are in a row,” Dendler said.

Assembled Products has three brand lines, all of which were deemed essential during the pandemic so work went on as best it could. Assembled Products sells motorized shopping carts, mobile desks for use in law enforcement vehicles and a line of power cleaning products.

Fiscal year 2020 turned out to be a good year for the company. “Our business thrived being in that category,” Dendler said. “It went from the first three months where everything was uncertain to by the end of the year demand was just tremendous.”

Dendler, 52, spent most of his life in Michigan and Houston before moving to Eureka Springs nine years ago with his wife, author Meg Welch Dendler. He got a nice severance package when the company where he was CFO was sold, and he thought he would be a stay-at-home dad for his daughter.

He got back to work a few years later and joined Assembled Products in 2017.

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