Hello! My name is Jennifer Gray and I am the lucky individual that runs manufacturing and operations here at Netgate (and a few other things, like Finance, but that’s another story). With global supply chains stressed for a year now due to the pandemic, it’s never a dull moment at Netgate.

As if things weren’t challenging enough, guess what we encountered last week? Snowpocalypse! The Austin, Texas metro area had as much as 6.4 inches of snow between Sunday night and Monday last week - the most snow Austin has seen in more than 70 years (6.5 inches fell in January, 1949).

Look, we know heat in central Texas. We don’t know snow and ice. Our facilities were out of power almost all of last week and icy roads made it impossible for us to get to Headquarters. Even FedEx, UPS, and the USPS stopped pickup and delivery services. Most of our employees lost power and/or water for the majority of the week while struggling with internet outages and grocery store shortages. While the city is still recovering, most areas began receiving power and water service over the weekend.

I’m here to report we are back in operation and working to fulfill backorders as fast as we can! Netgate is fortunate to have top notch staff and their dedication shows in every unit we build and ship.

Here are some important things to know:

  • Our build operations folks returned to work on Sunday, making a huge dent in building orders placed last week to minimize shipping delays this week. We expect to clear the backlog this week, so orders this week experience no delays.
  • Freight carriers were also out of service last week in this area. Incoming inventory shipments resume this week, as scheduled. We are expecting no additional issues with the supply chain, at least as a result of the icy conditions last week.
  • In addition to Snowpocalypse last week, we also switched over to a new eCommerce platform. Production is up and running with order inflow from the new system, but please don’t hesitate to contact us if you experience any order issues.
  • I’ll share a couple of evidence pics (sorry for the blur on the second pic - we make great secure networking appliances, but our build room personnel are only occasional photography buffs). Oh, and that 3rd photo? Meet Wolfie. He joined us in 2019 as part of a Halloween display, and just refuses to go back to our props closet. When he’s not helping out in Production (as you see below), or doing guard duty, he lurks around the office to keep our employees ‘on their toes’. His hobbies include raiding the snack pantry, playing fetch with the office dogs, and chasing Amazon drivers away from our back dock :).

Building Sunday

Full Shipping Conveyor

Wolfie Helping

  • We’re still working through the backlog, and expect to be caught up by close of business Wednesday this week.
  • The next hurdle is beyond our control - and that is when Fedex/UPS will start picking up. We don’t have exact or current knowledge as to how long it will take them to catch up on a week’s worth of product pickups, let alone get them delivered to normal distribution points outside of Texas.

In the end, we are just like you. We do our best, but unforeseen circumstances do arise. And when that happens, what we promise is to work fast and hard for our customers - and apply a little extra Texas grit!

As always, feel free to reach out directly to us if there is anything else we can do to serve you.