Happy Holidays
Communication Award Deadline Extended
HDAW Coming Soon
Board Change
Credit Card Dues Payment?
Tech Award
Industry Obit
Chairman's Corner
Happy
Holidays To Everyone From TWNA!
It's that time of the year when we're all looking forward to
gather with friends and family (or try to run away from them,
but that's another story…) but most of all, the holidays
are a time for a little rest. Which is more than welcome for
the vast majority of the TWNA members! As such, TWNA's Board
of Directors would like to send its best wishes to all of our
members for a great holiday season!
Communication Award Deadline Extended
For those who were working frantically to get their entries
ready by December 15th, good news, you can now breathe a little
easier. For those who said they weren't able to get anything
ready by the 15th, your excuse just vanished. The new deadline
is December 31st, 2007.
So now you have a
couple extra weeks to enter TWNA's 2007 Communication Awards,
get the quality of your work recognized throughout the continent,
get famous among your peers and ask your boss for a raise!
Many of our perennial
entrants have already submitted entries, and more than a few
of our regulars had requested the additional time. At this point,
it looks like we will have a great group of entries, even if
it has been a bit of a slow news year.
The entry form for
the TWNA 2007 Communication Awards is available as a downloadable
PDF file on the TWNA website (www.twna.org). Materials produced
for release between November 1, 2006 and October 31, 2007, are
eligible for submission in this year's program. The award-winning
entries will be recognized during TWNA's Annual Industry Awards
Banquet at the Mid America Trucking Show in March, 2008.
HDAW Coming Soon
In late January, the Heavy Duty Manufacturers Association (HDMA)
will once again be presenting its popular Heavy
Duty Dialogue and Heavy Duty
Aftermarket Week (HDAW). This year, TWNA will be sponsoring
the afternoon coffee breaks during the Heavy Duty Dialogue event
to help raise awareness of our association in the supplier community.
The Heavy Duty Dialogue
event features the top names in the truck business, providing
a great "State of the Industry" overview for the coming
year. Because the event is strictly "B to B" its format
is very productive for face-to-face discussions with the industry's
top newsmakers. Although the component side of the business
is the event's key focus, OEM-level sales projections and business
issues are also discussed.
Please don't let
the "Aftermarket" in HDAW limit your imagination or
expectations. While a big part of HDAW is the ability for aftermarket
distributors to meet one on one with the industry's top suppliers,
that's just a part of the story. HDAW also features a two-day
product/service expo with over 200 exhibitors, hundreds of product
experts, and none of the pork chop sales or giveaway lines that
create a hectic environment at the end-user shows.
Members of the press
wishing to be credentialed for the Heavy Duty Dialogue and HDAW
events should contact Margaret
Beck via e-mail.
Peterbilt's David Giroux To Represent OEM's
On TWNA's Board
At their most recent meeting, TWNA's Board welcomed David Giroux,
who will begin to serve as the OEM representative on January
1st. He replaces Melissa Epping, who has moved to a different
post at Peterbilt. David is Peterbilt's Director of Marketing
and Communications.
Credit Card Dues Payment Discussed
The Board is discussing the possibility for TWNA members to
pay their annual dues by using a credit card, rather than having
the necessity to write a check. Many members told us that the
credit card option would be much more convenient. The Board
members have met a couple of times on that issue and are exploring
different scenarios, in order to pick the one that would best
serve TWNA members' interests. Stay tuned for more developments
shortly.
Technical Achievement Award: Judging Begins
The members of TWNA's Technical Achievement Award Committee
are currently studying the new products that were suggested
by members to be named "Best of 2007". A short list
is in preparation and the final vote should be held before the
end of the year.
The Technical Achievement
will be handed out to the recipient at the TMC, followed by
another presentation at the Mid-America Trucking Show. Last
year, the big winner was Cummins Filtration, for its user-friendly
fuel and oil filters.
While complete vehicles
are not eligible, components are. To be eligible, a product
or service has to clearly exhibit technical innovation, have
a wide applicability in the trucking industry, offer significant
benefits and be widely available (for the first time during
the award year).
Industry Obit
Truck industry veteran Lowboy Lucas's wife Jane passed away
earlier this month. Those wishing to pass along condolences
can reach Lowboy at:
Lowboy
Lucas (Dr. Michael Lucas Fry)
727 Bell Road # 1215
Antioch, TN 37013
lucas.fry@comcast.net
Chairman's Corner
By Eric Berard
Accent? What Accent?
There are some advantages
to being part of a minority in a particular business. For instance,
I think there are not more than two or three French-speaking
editors on the North American trucking circuit. Personally,
I feel it's a huge advantage. It's notorious that people tend
to forget about names... but also tend to remember better those
who are different. The minute they hear or meet me, I always
get that remark: "Oh, yes, you're the one with the French
accent." Pretty convenient!
But being part of
a linguistic minority can also lead to funny situations. I was
recently in Europe for a big press event organized by the folks
of Daimler-Freightliner. There were more than 200 journalists
from 28 countries, so the organizers had made sure to have interpreters
on-site. This way, Daimler executives could understand and answer
questions asked by anybody, regardless of the language. During
the whole presentation held in German, I was listening to the
French interpreter, being glad that, for once, I didn't have
to translate in my head what had just been said before noting
it.
So when the question
period arrived, I was so enthusiastic that I took advantage
of the opportunity and, for the first time in 10 years, I asked
a question in French! But . . . (there's always a but in my
stories). But the French interpreters were all from France and
kind of panicked when they heard my "Quebec version"
of Moliere's language. Witnesses heard the interpreters shaking
their papers all around the desk, apparently asking themselves:
"What kind of French is that?" Though it was hilarious
at the moment, Ilearned my lesson and stuck to English for the
rest of the presentation.
The good news is
that the interpreters finally recognized my "dialect"
and were able to direct my question to the Daimler executives.
An accent? What accent, Sacrebleu ?
