Introducing Our 2024 Supply Summit Speaker Lineup

Get ready for the 2024 Supply Summit in Little Rock, where industry leaders will tackle key challenges in the Shortline manufacturing industry. Our lineup of speakers, comprising top minds in the field, will offer practical insights and strategies to help you succeed in the marketplace. Expect to leave with actionable ideas and renewed motivation to drive your business forward.

General Sessions

Steve Goreham: I’d Like to Keep My Pickup Truck and Diesel Tractor:
Goreham is a speaker, an author, and he speaks and writes about energy, industry, agriculture, the environment, sustainable development, economic trends, climate change, and corporate environmental policy. During his general opening session, he will discuss hydrocarbon and renewable energy, climate, net zero, electric vehicles, and technologies, with implications for the agricultural equipment industry.

Richard Hadden: Recruiting and Retention in the New World of Work:
Hadden is a Certified Speaking Professional who focuses on connecting people to profit. He is co-author of the popular Contented Cows leadership book series. His presentation will teach you what organizations must do to attract, retain, and engage a willing and enthusiastic workforce in 2024 and beyond. We’ll explore the keys to landing the best people on your team in this worker’s market.

Brandon Dempsey: Scaling Sales with Less: In this session, Dempsey will delve into innovative strategies employed by leading manufacturers in the current sales landscape. Discover how to scale your sales operations efficiently using automation, AI, and scalable systems, all while maintaining a personalized and relationship-driven approach. Learn how to achieve exceptional levels of personability, foster high-touch interactions, drive substantial growth, and enhance profitability, even with constrained resources. Join us to unlock the secrets of successful expansion in manufacturing with fewer people and greater impact.

Breakout Sessions

Derek Wagoner: Business Transitions: Wagoner, is a CPA from Pinion and will lead a session focused on transitions in management as well as ownership, giving tricks to help better plan and manage the transition. He specializes in consulting businesses in the Construction, Food and beverage, and manufacturing markets including optimizing entity structuring, financial planning and analysis, as well as traditional tax and audit services.

Rick Rosenhagen: Sales and Marketing — A Unified Objective: Rosenhagen, Association Member, will discuss the importance of an intentional focus from both the OEM and the supplier perspectives to leverage the enhancements and value propositions of their products and their parts and to unify their sales and marketing messages and approaches. A sneak peak of his Fall Session will be provided which will dig deeper into the sales and channel marketing strategies including communications, branding, etc.

Trent Johnson: Terms and Conditions of Purchase/Sale: Johnson of Foley and Lardner, LLP will return to educate members on best practices. He counsels manufacturers on issues involving channel structure, drafting key contractual provisions, state and federal antitrust law compliance, contract administration and enforcement, e-commerce issues, distributor and dealer performance, product pricing, discount and rebate programs, product purchase disputes, etc.

Dan Zastava & Mike Johnston: Insurance Trends in Building Valuation & Cyber: Zastava from Sentry leads a corporate underwriting and product development team at Sentry, where his team develops, implements and monitors commercial lines, product offerings, and results. This session will focus on recent insurance trends within commercial property and cyber insurance coverage and discuss ways to address them. Ensuring that your building limit is set to an appropriate value is critical to avoiding pitfalls – coinsurance penalties – which can reduce the total amount that you may receive in a loss.

Johnston leads an underwriting team that focuses on Property and Casualty lines for manufacturing and whole good markets. Predominant sectors include metalworking, plastic/rubber goods, food processing, and distribution of the like. He recently took the role of managing Sentry’s FEMA Underwriting team given his experience with underwriting various metalworking risks. He comes with 11-years of property underwriting experience with Sentry and will join Dan Zastava in the discussion surrounding property trends, the causes to these trends, and how property insurers are needing to react to ensure appropriate coverage for their policyholders.