The Equity Plumbing buying group celebrated its fifth anniversary earlier this year and recently held its well-attended first annual national meeting. Spawned from the old Equity/EDN electrical buying group and further strengthened by the acquisition of United Purchasing Affiliates’ marketing operations in 2012, today’s Equity boasts 405 distributor members (500 including all branch locations) and 85 vendors with member distributors generally falling in the $5 million to $15 million annual sales range. During Equity’s recent meeting in Orlando, President and CEO Matt Roos, Vice President Vendor Relations Bob Snyder and Vice President Marketing Ted Havel sat down and talked with Supply House Times about a number of topics, including the importance of the small independent distributor in today’s marketplace.