The Foundation Corner

A heartfelt thank you to our many customers and contributors to the Karl E. Neupert Endowment Fund who visited with us in the ASA booth at the Network '05 “ChannelMarketplace” in Orlando. We always learn a lot from our customers and thoroughly enjoy visiting with them in person. If you did not attend, you missed a compelling agenda of inspirational, informational and profitable sessions.

One hit for us at Network '05 was the excellent reception we received to the new Employee Performance Improvement Toolkit that we introduced in Orlando. We received dozens of questions concerning how to tie job descriptions and performance evaluations to company goals. Visitors were very pleased to see how easily the information in the Tool Kit could be adapted to their own needs. They especially appreciate the time and expense that can be saved with the included CD-ROM. It contains the 21 job descriptions written in Microsoft Word which can be easily overwritten and adapted to their own companies.p> We know the year is passing quickly but there are still many profit-building training opportunities for you and your staff to experience.

SWA

The Southern Wholesalers Association is co-sponsoring three Essentials of Profitable PHCP Distribution seminars with the Education Foundation this fall in Orlando, FL, Nashville, TN and Raleigh, NC. More than 2,000 people have taken the course since it was introduced a few years ago. The schedule is posted on both the SWA and EF websites. Also, SWA has selected February 8-10, 2006 for its perennially popular Profit Enhancement Institute in Atlanta.

Top Gun Sales Seminars

The Top Gun Sales Seminars with Dave Kahle kicked off the 2005 season on September 19 in Chicago with nine more seminars to follow in various cities around the nation throughout the fall season. This is an excellent, reasonably-priced program covering the basics that inside and outside sales persons need to know. Check the Foundation's website calendar for exact times and locations.

The Karl E. Neupert Endowment Fund Campaign

The Karl E. Neupert Endowment Fund Campaign, under new campaign leaders Karolyn Neupert and H. Steve Anderson, along with a new campaign team (see insert), kicked off the final leg of the Endowment campaign with Karolyn's stirring call to finish the campaign. The campaign team, with $350,000 left to raise against the original plan of $10 million, has committed itself to completing the campaign within one year. Several donors who already have been more than generous have again stepped forward with new contributions.

(See insert below).

Over the last several years the Karl E. Neupert Endowment Fund has been the primary supporter of new education program development like the Tool Kit we introduced at Network '05, the Essentials of Profitable Distribution courses, the University of Industrial Distribution scholarships, the regional and special interest group education subsidies, and select portions of the convention programming.

Failure to complete this campaign is not an option! With modest earnings expected over the next few years and a growing number of programs that need development and maintenance, we will need to at least reach - if not exceed - the original $10 million goal.

If you have yet to contribute please contact any member of the new campaign team for information on why completing the campaign is critical to the health and prosperity of our channel, or call Paul Martin at 312-464-0090.

Members of the new Campaign team:

H. Steve Anderson, Co-chair

Karolyn Neupert, Co-chair

Joel Becker

Larry D. Birch

Inge Calderon

Nick Guiffre

Jeff New

Colin Perry

Joe Poehling

Paul Martin

An extra special thank you to the following donors who have made additional contributions to their prior pledges:

A&B Pipe and Supply, Inc.

Bradford WhiteCorporation

Buttes/Center Pipe & Supply Co.

BWA Company

Central States Industrial Supply

Columbia Pipe and Supply

Consolidated Supply Company

Eastern Pennsylvania

Supply Company

Edward J. and Cathy Felton

Hirsch Pipe and Supply Co.

IPS Corp.

Johnston Supply, Inc.

First Supply Group, Inc.

Karolyn Neupert

Mid-City Supply

Modern Supply Company

Northeastern Supply, Inc.

Plumbing Distributors, Inc.

ProLine Sales Inc.

Rampart P&H Supply, Inc.

Ridgewood Corp.

Schmidt's Wholesale, Inc.

Torrington Supply

Company, Inc.

Western Nevada Supply