Reno: A Place Of Trains & Slots
Of the members who had difficulty sleeping in Reno because of the 3:00 a.m. “wake up” call from the nearby railroad switching yard, at least they could console themselves with the fact that the Reno Fall Convention, “The Shortline Advantage: Competing in a Global Market,” saw almost 400 happy faces among FEMA executives attending the meeting. Happy because the ag equipment business has been very good to them over the past year.
That didn’t mean that there wasn’t some concern, however. Looking at the current drop in commodity prices, the lack of credit and the overall economic outlook — there was certainly cause for concern. The jam-packed breakout session Friday afternoon on the current “Credit Crunch” was proof enough.
On a positive note, members elected Ricky Brown, president of Brown Manufacturing Corp. in Ozark, AL as President of FEMA for the next year. Elected 1st VP was John McCoy, president of Orthman Mfg. Inc. in Lexington, NE and John Malinowski, General Manager of Leon’s Mfg. Co., Inc. in Yorkton, SK was elected to the position of 2nd VP Newly elected to be Secretary of the association was Sandy Kimball, president of Bigham Brothers, Inc. in Lubbock, TX. Bob Atkinson with W & A Mfg. in Pine Bluff, AR was reelected as Treasurer.
From the opening joint breakfast session featuring Garrison Wynn talking on “Making the Most of Difficult Situations” (Did that include speaking through a power failure?) right through to the intense note-taking in Tom Murphy’s talk on “Thriving in Today’s Global Value Chain,” general session and breakout speakers all seemed to be “on target” with the relevance of their talks.
Nathan Fields, Director of the National Corn Growers Assn.’s Biotechnology and Economic Analysis gave an energetic and thought-provoking answer to critics charges against using corn-based ethanol in fuel. Using a barrage of statistics (most of which are available on the FEMA website which is discussed later in this article), Fields debunks the media’s cry echoing national food stores that high grocery prices are the result of using corn ethanol in gas and soybeans in bio diesel.
Unfortunately, the scheduled Mark Pearson talk, “What’s Ahead for Agriculture” was necessarily cancelled due to an air delay which would have postponed his Reno arrival until the next day. (This might sound familiar to more than a few attendees who reported a similar fate) Bob Janet, however, led a rousing sales seminar on “Aggressive Selling and Marketing” as a more than adequate replacement. It sometimes seems that a “rockum-sockum” motivational sales speech is “just what the doctor ordered.”
In the second paragraph of this article was mentioned the Friday afternoon breakout session on credit availability. Moderated by Tom Franzen with Litchfield insurance broker Scheller & Co. (and a local bank board member), panelists included Steve Norris with Omaha NE’s Diversified Financial Services, LLC, Mike Lessiter, Editor and Publisher of Farm Equipment magazine and Ag Intelligence newsletter and Dennis Fedosa, CEO of Agricredit Acceptance.
Many of our speaker’s presentations can be accessed by those who attended the Fall Convention. By now, attendees should have received an email with the link needed to access their presentations.
Yes — speakers, seminars and breakout sessions are important to any convention. In this case, meeting with attending wholesalers and reps are also important. But in this day of more alternative markets and increased dealer-direct marketing than ever took place in the past, networking with fellow, and sometimes competing, manufacturers has become the central issue for manufacturers to meet.
Don’t forget to mark your calendars now for the next Spring Management Clinic, Apr. 2-4, 2009 at the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort in Phoenix and the next Fall Convention, Nov. 4-7, 2009 at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta. We look forward to seeing you at both meetings! ❖