President's Message
August 2009 CVSN INSIDER 2 A Look Back The first two years of CVSN were a time of settling the issues related to the merge of two great associations into a new one. Robyn Spitz-ke-Kent did an excellent job of getting CVSN off the ground and I am thankful that the tough job was done by the time I became President. My goal over the last two years was to concen-trate our efforts on developing relationships with other organizations and establishing our place in the industry in order to make CVSN the leading industry association. The Associa-tion's excellent Board of Directors has provided the vision, guidance and oversight over all ef-forts to achieve this goal and they are due my heart-felt thanks. During the last two years we strengthened our relationships within the industry having become equal owners in HDAW along with HDDA and HDMA. This ownership gives us significant input into the form and substance of that very important industry event. Marc Karon championed our involvement in HDAW and I am confident that his strong voice and leadership on behalf of CVSN will leave its mark on HDAW. In addition, we have partnered with Randall Reilly and HDX/Datalliance, two very important industry leaders to bring a new look and new content to our annual meeting. Both of these partners bring fresh perspectives and new resources to our meeting. We are very excited about the value of the forthcoming in-PrESIDENT'S MESSAGE augural Aftermarket Distribution Summit. Our membership has grown and diversified as we continue to make our association better. We have attracted new members, both manufactur-ers and distributors as a result of our efforts. While much of our effort has been directed toward the future, we have also taken a look back at the history of aftermarket distribution. I introduced the President's Award to give rec-ognition to those people who have contributed significantly to the industry, the associations and their community. I was particularly proud of having been able to recognize the personal commitment of the DiSano and Phillips fami-lies. Their contributions reinforce my firm be-lief in active participation. There are new challenges on the horizon for CVSN. The economy is still in a down cycle, which directly impacts member support of industry activities, but we have experienced these cycles before. The biggest challenge of the future relates to member involvement. In order for any association to grow and become strong it takes commitment from the people within. Sydney J Harris's quote If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem definitely applies in this case. I encourage you to get up and get involved. This is a great As-sociation to be part of and it is very satisfying to give back to the industry that has done so much for each and every one of us. On a personal note, I must thank the Board for their vision, support and dedication. I have been involved in other boards where the care and effort were just words in the dictionary, not a mindset. I also owe a deep debt of grati-tude to Angelo Volpe, who works extremely hard for this Association. My involvement on the Boards, firstly of NWRA and now CVSN Ken Duval President [ CONTINUE ARTICLE ON PAGE !9 ]