Michael Zak
From the President
Year End Review – Thank You
Howdy,
2015 was a year of new faces, speakers, new benefits, and new events as well as hearing from reliable, trustworthy industry sources. Sometimes I get caught up with the day job of running operations at a car dealership and forget how much goes on with the Association and all the moving parts that are needed to pull off providing to you the members a first class distribution of knowledge, an environment to network, and have fun. So here goes a big, big thank you to the following for making another year.
• TIADA Executive Director Jeff Martin and Legislative Consultant Mario Martinez for providing an overview of the 2015 Legislative Session and getting everyone fired up to attend TIADA Lobby Day at the Capitol.
• Debi Pack, Director Auto Division, Peggy Martinez, Area Branch Manager, and a score of fellow Harris County Tax Assessor employees for educating dealers on the 2-Step-One Sticker program as well as bringing us up today on changes within the tax office.
• Brent Carmichael, a NCM Executive Conference Moderator and a leading expert on the BHPH industry for conducting a full 1-day workshop on the art of collections.
• Ken Ulmer, President of Safetow and Chairman of the Houston Automotive Board for communicating the problems the Board encounters involving storage lots, dealerships, and towing and the best way to handle problems dealers come across.
• Courtney Parrott, Director Automotive Advertising, Houston Chronicle Media Group and Martin Flores, Director Aurora Group by providing their thoughts on historical information on where marketing is going and how best to spend advertising dollars.
• Somir Paul, President Woodlands Financial, Kip Cochran, EVP Mid-Atlantic Finance, Chris Wood and Ryan Szumowski, CAR Financial Services, Chantelle Hardy, National Sales Representative United Acceptance, Monte Monroe, VP Commercial Lending Third Coast Bank, and David Douglas, Market Area Manager Credit Acceptance for participating in our most well attended meeting of the year. It appears everyone wanted to know about special financing and the impact on their business.
• Corrie Alvarado, Attorney TxDMV for providing advertising do’s and don’ts and how the DMV goes about enforcing the law.
•
•