News Release from: Electronic Distribution Show Corporation
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 15 August 2005
Distribution show returns to Las Vegas
An invigorated Electronic Distribution Show and Conference will return to the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas next May with a new volunteer team on top of the planning.
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An invigorated Electronic Distribution Show and Conference will return to the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas next May (2nd to 4th May 2006), with a new volunteer team on top of the planning and five new members of the Board of Directors. Manufacturers' representative Dan Parks, West Electronic Sales Team, Fountain Valley, California, has succeeded distributor William P Carlton, Carlton-Bates, Little Rock, Arkansas, as EDS President. Manufacturer Carla Mahrt moves up to Vice-President, and distributor Craig Conrad, TTI, Fort Worth, Texas, steps into the Secretary-Treasurer role.
Gerald M Newman continues as Executive Vice-President.
Coming off a well-received 2005 show, the new officers and the board committed themselves to creating an even better venue for networking and relationship-building, a continued effort to brand EDS as an association-sponsored event for the entire global electronics sales and distribution community, and to bring value to all participants, regardless of size, geographical reach or niche.
All this will happen without any escalation in fees, Parks says; the board has held the line on all costs within its control.
Some 100 companies took advantage of the early sign-up window offered during EDS 2005; and at least three times that number are expected to register as exhibitors when enrollment re-opens in early October.
Parks, the new president, has spent a quarter-century in the electronics industry, including regional and national sales positions with such manufacturers at Murata-Erie, Spectrum Control, Corcom and Cherry.
He joined the West organisation in 1994, and became its President in 1998.
He has 'gone through all the chairs' in the Southern California chapter of ERA, and now heads its Educational Trust - an appropriate position for a former science teacher.
His other involvement in the association world includes a professional stint as Vice-President of the California Furniture Manufacturers Association.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, he currently resides in Tustin, California, with his wife Yolanda, and two children, Katherine, 16, and David, 14.
Parks is the second West executive to head EDS; Don West held the position in 1997.
Parks' varied background gives him the broad perspective to lead an event that has long been recognised as two events in one - a product and display-oriented trade show on the floor, and a venue for private meetings between manufacturers and distributors in upstairs suites.
More recently it has added a third dimension, as many manufacturers have begun to use EDS primarily to recruit reps and meet with current reps.
Many of these are industry newcomers who switch from rep to distributor orientation at EDS after two or three years of putting rep networks in place.
Parks calls attention to another new phenomenon noted by the EDS Board at its summer meeting: the growing tendency on the exhibit floor for companies to become more appointment-oriented.
In a survey conducted by the Show Corporation in June, virtually all respondents reported that they come to EDS with a roster of advance appointments and with agendas for those meetings - very different from five years ago.
Recognising and reacting to these and other changes are primary board responsibilities, which the current board is geared to address.
'EDS has changed dramatically during my time in the industry', Parks said.
'Keeping pace with the dramatic changes that the industry has experienced in this era of consolidation and globalisation'.
Parks, Mahrt and Conrad, the officers, along with Carlton, the immediate past President, comprise the EDS Executive Committee, along with the executive officers of the three sponsoring trade associations, ECA, ERA and NEDA.
(The EDS presidency traditionally rotates among the three functions, manufacturer, distributor, representative).
The annual gathering of the worldwide electronics distribution community will officially open for business at 0900 on Tuesday morning 2nd May, and exhibits will continue through Thursday 4th May at 1230.
However, networking and education will get started sooner, with an industry golf outing on Sunday, and a Monday jam-packed with educational programmes for distributors, produced by NEDA, followed by a keynote from an important industry figure and the largest social gathering in electronics distribution, the all-industry cocktail party sponsored by ECA.
Additional networking functions are being developed for Tuesday and Wednesday evenings as well, Newman said.
EDS, organised in 1937, is certainly the senior trade show for the electronics industry, and possibly the longest-running trade show in any industry.
What accounts for its staying fresh and relevant while other events have fallen by the wayside?.
Newman credits the constant infusion of new ideas from a rotating board, tempered by the continuity of input and oversight from the executives of the sponsoring trade associations, ECA, ERA and NEDA, and the stability offered by long-standing independent management.
Newman, Executive Vice-President since 1993, is the third generation leader of the management organisation that has operated EDS since 1946 and been associated with it since 1937.
Robin Gray has served EDS for more than a decade as Executive Officer of NEDA, and Bob Willis of ECA has been aboard for eight years.
Ray Hall remains ERA's emissary to the industry and to EDS, even though he has relinquished his CEO role with the association.
Governance of EDS is the responsibility of the 12-person Board of Directors, chosen by their respective trade associations, based on their roles in their own companies as well as in ECA, ERA or NEDA.
Election to the EDS Board has long been considered among the highest honours the industry confers, incentivising people of statute to serve on a voluntary basis, for a maximum of six consecutive years, determining policy for the annual meeting place and marketplace for their fellow decision makers in electronic distribution.
EDS Directors, in addition to the executive committee, include: two newly elected manufacturers' representatives, Paul C Neilsen, Brainard-Neilsen Marketing, Elk Grove, Illinois, and Mark Conley, O'Donnell Associates North, Palo Alto, California; two newly elected manufacturers, Cindy Habick, National Sales Manager, NTE Electronics and James P Kaplan, President, Cornell Dubilier Electronics; as well as distributor Craig Conrad, Senior Vice President, TTI Glyndwr Smith, Vishay, continues as a director, as do rep Mark Motsinger, Wallace Electronic Sales, Kernersville, North Carolina.
Other continuing distributors are Howard Taxe, RS Electronics, Livonia, Michigan, and Tom McCartney, Avnet, Scottsdale, Arizona.
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