As another year comes to a close, I cannot help but to look back and reflect on how resilient and successful our association was during another year of disruption.  

For a second straight year, our world struggled with a worldwide pandemic and unprecedented supply chain disruption. But one thing remains constant. Our association and our dedicated volunteer leaders continue to be the voice of hope for a stronger future for our industry.

It should not be a surprise for you to learn that ASA experienced net growth this year as more industry firms joined our effort toward building one future.

Our advocacy team delivered very strong wins and planted the seeds for future impact at both the federal and state levels. ASA negotiated a compromise to delay implementation of California Bill AB100 — a law that would have limited California distributors’ ability to sell certain products that leach more than 1 μg/L of lead.

This agreement extends the implementation period by several years, avoiding what could have been costly losses to our members. ASA also took a position on 99 code proposals and succeeded on 85% of those proposals during the code-change process.

Our business intelligence and economic reporting provided members with 175 economic podcasts, webinars and economic reports with valuable guidance on economic trends impacting our businesses and industry.

ASA received timely data on the rapid changes in compensation with plans in 2022 to provide more information to help members remain competitive with their compensation for key positions.

ASA launched an unprecedented program to help members assess their firm’s strengths and their readiness to remain competitive in the future. The VITALITY growth assessment survey is an exciting program delivered by our third-party partner New Edge that will shed light as to where a member is strong and where new investment will be needed so that our member firms will remain the most relevant and successful companies in the future.  

We continue to invest in building our industry and our members’ brands among potential career seekers as Project Talent and the SupplyIndustryCareers.com website generated impressions seen by millions of potential job applicants. ASA offers marketing tools, images and recruitment guidance at no cost to members so they build momentum and stand out as companies that offer great careers.

In November, NETWORK welcomed more than 725 people, 82 distributor firms, 70 manufacturer firms and 65 manufacturer rep firms to Las Vegas for the industry’s biggest gathering of the year. We offered a great lineup of 23 educational and networking sessions over the two-day conference, including three sessions that were live streamed!

It never ceases to amaze me that as the challenges we face grow, so too does the ability of our ASA to grow and to meet those challenges to support our members.

It never has been a more important time to be a member of ASA.