Looking Back, Moving Forward

“Wow!” We had a great annual convention in Santa Clara, Calif. It was a wonderful opportunity to get re-energized and come back to the shop with some fresh ideas. I hope you saw the recap of the convention in the June issue. In addition, I wanted to share just a few personal comments about the success of the event.

Perhaps no one left Santa Clara happier than ASA member Bob Constant. Bob was the winner of the Toyota TechStream diagnostic unit, valued at around $8,000, that was given away by Toyota Motor Sales USA, a sponsor of the event. In addition, Toyota gave all annual meeting attendees a free, one-year subscription to its service information Web site. In fact, our many sponsors, plus the participants in the Benefit Provider reception, were very generous with prizes and giveaways throughout the event. See what attendees walked away with on page 50 of this issue.

I met many of you in Santa Clara, but I also missed seeing the members who did not attend. I renewed friendships that were made at previous ASA functions. We talked over old times and also looked toward the future. The executive board met with the past chairmen who were in attendance, and the value of getting their insight on the industry and the future goals of ASA is immeasurable.

And the planning didn’t end there. Both the Mechanical Division and the Collision Division met to map out ideas for the coming year. Rolf Werner, who succeeded Earl Dohner as Mechanical Division director, will do an excellent job. And my personal thanks to Earl for a terrific job as division director these past few years. The Collision Division is also in good hands – congratulations to Darrell Amberson on his re-election as division director.

As a board, we continue to serve you, the member, and I believe we continue to have a strong team in place. (See page 54.)

I would also like to congratulate this year’s new Automotive Management Institute graduates – all 81 of them! This makes a total of 1,408 to graduate from AMI.

Big things happen at the ASA convention, so I sincerely hope to see you next year in Florida! And as your chairman, I would also like to ask all of you to expand your focus on member recruitment. Wherever you go, if you’re around non-members at meetings, training sessions, etc., please encourage your non-member peers to join ASA. The membership department can help you with this – and you could even win a trip to Las Vegas when you participate in ASA’s membership recruitment program, the Chairman’s Club! Full details are in the Members Only section of www.ASAshop.org, and there is still time to win! Automotive Service and Repair Week (ASRW) will be held at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas Nov. 5-8, and CARS and NACE are being co-located this year! It’s going to be great, so start recruiting those members today!