The dedicated and employee-centric response to a North Carolina factory explosion and two-day fire in early 2003 have shaped the leadership and legacy of West Pharmaceutical Services’ soon-to-retire CEO Donald Morel Jr., according to an interview on Philly.com.

From “absolutely staggering” television images of “flames everywhere and smoke” together with the news “reporting more than 100 dead” to an end-of-the-year report of some late orders but not a single one missed despite losing “a substantial amount of our production capacity,” Morel called the disaster response “one of the greatest achievements in the company’s history.”

And it wasn’t just because the Exton-bas

ed global medical component manufacturer rallied to keep the business rolling. From day one, Morel put his affected employees first, paying them a month of salary and benefits while his team sorted everything out.

“For all of you listening out there, it’s employees and families first,” the article quoted him as saying at the first meeting the day after the explosion. “It’s going to be customers second and anything else, we are not going to worry about it because it is probably out of our control anyway.”

That commitment to employees and a commitment to rebuild the plant in the same community set in motion an outpouring of support that has defined West Pharma’s corporate culture and “multiplied in huge amounts to every location around the world in some way, shape or form.”

Read more about Morel’s look back on the Kinston, N.C., disaster and its effects over the years on Philly.com here.