Dear Industry Colleagues,

I am extremely honored and privileged to have been asked to serve as ASA President during this fantastic time of growth within our industry. I am 100% committed to continuing the fine traditions of ASA, and also to enhancing the organization’s value to all of our stakeholders. These include our regional affiliates and members of ASA’s various divisions. Our strategic vision calls for us to be indispensable to the industry, and I look forward to continuing this vision throughout 2012.

As discussed in my address to the ASA membership at NetworkASA 2011 last September, we have come a long way in a short time to reinvigorate and refocus the association. The gentlemen responsible for this include my predecessors Bill Kenny, Frank Nisonger, Joe Poehling, Jeff New and Joel Becker. These forward-thinking leaders served as presidents of ASA over the last five years and have volunteered countless hours of their valuable time to preserve and strengthen our association. They all turned times of challenge into windows of opportunity and reward. They deserve our recognition and thanks.

As ASA President throughout 2012, I plan to continue Bill Kenny’s efforts and focus on our four key strategic objectives of Networking, Education, Advocacy and Benchmarking. In my opinion, the single greatest benefit of our organization and our industry is the helpfulness and openness of the people who make it successful. As we all know, this is a give-and-take effort. Member priority should be to take advantage of all ASA has to offer in the area of Networking to get the most from their membership. ASA’s great regional events, our very successful industry-wide NetworkASA meetings, committee, council and other regular networking opportunities speak volumes about their value.

I would like to recognize what I think are the most critical areas for the recent re-emergence of ASA’s relevance within our industry. One of these is the work of our ASA Education Foundation Board of Trustees in building a robust educational experience. As evidenced by his presentation to our membership at NetworkASA 2011 and throughout the past year, Mark Hanley has done a great job of leading ASA’s educational efforts, spearheaded by the introduction of the new highly anticipated ASA University and the expansion of educational product offerings available to the membership. If you are currently a member of ASA and are not utilizing these offerings, you need to “engage and learn” in 2012 as you are certainly missing out.

Another area of re-emergence has been the leadership’s vision in engaging the association full-time in the area of government affairs. Since December of 2010, Dan Hilton has represented the interests of ASA in Washington, D.C. ASA members and their businesses create jobs, pay taxes and essentially drive the economy. Yet many of our elected officials view us as the enemy. This simply is not true, and Dan will continue to “fight the good fight” for us in Washington to protect our interests and educate our representatives on the value of our businesses and our supply channel.

Last, but certainly not least, the area of Benchmarking is the strategic initiative that I am most passionate about. Benchmarking is a key area where ASA can expand upon in the new year, and I visualize developing our benchmarking tools into a forward-looking forecasting model. ASA does a great job of providing information on what is currently happening, and I look forward to leading us into the arena of providing dependable information regarding what is about to happen. Our leadership is heading up a strong forecasting task force in the new year to ensure that this is the case. We can’t wait to share with you the results of our work.

2012 has begun - let’s take this ride together and make it a great one!


Scott Weaver
APR Supply Co.

Links

• ASA website
• For More ASA News