As the great band Europe sang so eloquently…it’s the Final Countdown!! My run as your president of ASA ends at the end of the year and it was a GREAT year.

First of all, YOUR association is financially healthy and stable, which is always starting things off on a good note. And if you were at NETWORK2024 in Chicago last month, you know that after a year of different headshots that I didn’t like, the office FINALLY got the right one up on the screen — so thank you team.

Secondly, ASA can help your companies in many different ways, but you have to participate.

Strategic Leadership Summit (LEAD): At the beginning of the year your ASA volunteer leaders met to discuss the larger issues our industry faces, and created strategic imperatives we needed to work on this year and the coming years to continue to help membership evolve with the ever-changing landscape. Data, regulations, politics and technology ruled the roundtables. And from these, ASA staff and volunteer leaders know what direction the association is going in.

Networking: From the Women in Industry meeting in Nashville, to last month’s national convention, you are networking. All the regional events are strong, which is a testament to the leadership of the regionals, and it also means there is content being provided to attendees that is a valuable resource.

Action: From the leadership summit came the first ASA Innovation Summit. Data was a core topic and something the Embracing the Future Council has been working diligently to present so our industry, our vendors and our distributor partners now have standards by which we get and give data. For distributor partners, it is critical you embrace this format. This was created by a conglomeration of distributors and vendors alike and adoption is the key to move data along in our industry.

At the Innovation Summit conference, panel discussions about cybersecurity awareness and how to protect your company against cyberattacks and what are the best practices if you have been hacked were shared. Artificial Intelligence and practical uses of AI in our business were talked about and shown. Please visit ASA.NET to get additional info on these topics.

ASA University continues to be the gold standard for continuing education, and part of ASA University is the Master of Distribution Management program. I can happily say I am now a graduate of the program, which was one of my goals this year. Full disclosure, I did start the program in 2017 and most people that take this long to finish school are called doctors or lawyers, but I am still in potty sales, but I am a more educated potty salesperson.

Probably the most important activity I have done this year happened in the past two months. I watched a webinar that Steve Edwards from ASA’s Project Talent did. Please watch the webinar with students from Texas A&M’s Industrial Distribution program I learned so much from it and starting changing my personal habits. I realized that LinkedIn IS the place new hires learn about culture and company values. Our company had not really paid much attention to it, but after watching I realized we were missing the boat.

Every year at all our meetings we talk about the lack of people wanting to get into the industry and how do we recruit people to it. I reached out to colleges in our business footprint to engage with them and see if they had guest speakers talk to their supply chain students.

Most (not all) business schools have supply chain degrees or at least have classes centered on supply chain and what that means to the world.

“ASA can help your companies in many different ways, but you have to participate.”

I have now talked to LSU, Texas A&M, and TCU, and have three other universities in the Coburn Supply footprint that I am going to talk to. My approach is as an introduction to our great industry and to share opportunities that are available to them in our industry.

I do talk about ASA and what the role of national associations are, but I am mostly talking about Coburn Supply Company and opportunities we have. The students ARE engaged. They KNOW what our industry is about, we just have to link them to our locations. They are interested in doing summer internships. Coburn’s is 90 this year, but we didn’t have a formalized internship program.

By using the Internship Resources we created a program and have it uploaded to most colleges in our footprint. We actually have students applying for these programs, which is VERY exciting. I’ll continue to update my activities on LinkedIn as I get to talk to the next generation of talent!!

ASA has a lot to offer. It isn’t just networking and ASA University (both are VERY Important). Advocacy is gaining steam, and we still need to support our voice in Washington.

As leaders in your companies you are busy, but you are missing out if you don’t take time to understand that ASA DOES have resources available to all companies, big or small. As we know, we need to do business better. We need to focus on our internal processes and be better at it. Like I said at NETWORK in Chicago, we can take a horse to the trough, but I can’t make you drink. As a decision-maker, drink the water.

And finally, thank you. It truly has been an honor and a privilege to serve in this role. I didn’t realize I would get so much out of it, but I have gained so much more than I have given, so thank you. Thank you to a great staff at ASA for doing almost all of the heavy lifting. Thank you to all the member volunteers because without your insight and time, our initiatives DON’T move forward.

And thank you to my Coburn Family for supporting my travels and my wife, Amy, and Sam, Jackson, Lila and Neal. The reason we all do what we do is to provide for our families. Without them saying it is OK to be gone again, this would not be possible.

Thank you all for your input to make this the GREAT industry it is. Cheers to 2024, and looking forward to a prosperous 2025.