“May this new year all your dreams turn into reality and all your efforts into great achievements.”
Anonymous

The New Year has arrived and we now turn our focus onto our 2018 goals and tasks. As for FPSA, we will be focusing our efforts on providing services and important benefits that will be helpful to your business.

First on our, and hopefully your 2018 calendar of events, is the FPSA Annual Conference being held March 21-23 in Tucson, AZ. This year, responding to feedback from past attendees, we have made changes to the conference schedule to include an interactive cross-segment panel discussion with experts in the Food Safety & Sanitary Design arena. Likewise, there will be formal attendee networking roundtables lead by prominent speakers in each of our industry sectors. Our two featured keynotes will be American hero, F16 fighter pilot, Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady, and, “the pitbull” of personal development and social commentator Larry Winget. Processing speakers will include the following with many others being added to the agenda:

• Palermo's Pizza
• Campbell Soup Company
• Kraft Heinz
• Califia Farms
• Dairy Farmers of America
• Bonduelle Ameriqué

Please click here for the schedule of events, registration information and hotel reservations at the Loews Ventana Canyon Resort. Book now as rooms at the discounted FPSA rate are limited. I look forward to seeing you there.

While you have your 2018 calendar open, there is another date I would like you to save, September 17-18 for our Fall Sales Conference which will be held at the Sheraton Rosemont Illinois. Once again attendees will have the opportunity to learn from popular topics, including inspirational sales management, customer retention and loyalty programs/processes, sales negotiations and marketing automation.

Third, the start of the year brings the launch of our Career Development Scholarship program with our Foundation awarding up to 15 scholarships to FPSA member's employees and immediate family members. The application process begins January 5 and ends on April 9. Winners will be notified in May. To learn more about the program, please click HERE. If you need more posters to place throughout your office to promote the program please contact Ann Marie Penaranda at apenaranda@fpsa.org

Fourth, we also encourage you to take part in our FREE informative webinars that will be held during 2019. The first webinar will take place on January 17 at 2 pm EST. The topic is “Palletized Product Freezing: How to Save Your Warehouse Money, Time, and Energy”. Click on the link to register.

Fifth, we have just added two additional great affinity program to our current list of cost-savings services. In an effort to continuously assist members to both help reduce operational costs and provide you with more substantive and critical economic information, in January we will be rolling out one new cost saving program and one new quarterly newsletter.

• ITR Economics produces a quarterly newsletter covering a wide range of economic indicators. ITR is headed by renowned economists Brian and Alan Beaulieu. The economic newsletter will include an industry specific addendum with a qualitative analysis of industry trends and projections.
• In addition we will be adding a credit card and ACH/Check processing services program to our menu of programs to help you save money. Service First Processing (SFP) provides credit and ACH/Check Processing services as well as purchasing card programs. SFP will provide you with a new opt-in program to help reduce monthly processing expenses, upgrade technologies to maximize efficiency, and provide better service to your customers.

Lastly, members should be on the lookout for our publication of six “global trends and forecast studies” that will be released to the membership this upcoming year. These new, as well as past studies, provide extremely valuable information, data, and projections on equipment sales opportunities.

Again best wishes for a happy new year, and I look forward to working with you to help your company and our association accomplish the many great achievements all of us desire.

Sincerely,

David Seckman
President/CEO