WSTDA is a Family

By Michael Gelskey, Sr.
WSTDA President

I hope that you are enjoying the ”hazy, lazy, crazy” days of summer and when next we realize it will be time for our Fall Meeting in Baltimore and the holidays! Our spring meeting in Ft. Myers was an outstanding one and did we ever play the weather card right!

Your Board has decided that educational presentations are a very worthwhile feature of our meetings. The technical presentation on UV light was very informative. One of our associate members had commented to me that if he had heard it before he did the work necessary as a manufacturer of webbing that it would have saved him many hours of work.

An exit survey for the Ft. Myers meeting revealed that our members would like the presentation of “Business Survival 101.” This presentation will be done for the membership of AWRF at their meeting in Kansas City a couple of weeks before our meeting in Baltimore. The panel discussion will focus on what needs to be done, long before the process server knocks on your door and you realize you are being sued. "Business Survival 101" will provide specific details in the areas of insurance, quality control and day to day operations to minimize exposure, by being proactive.

Our committees are hard at work and we are within striking distance of attaining concurrent standards review. I proposed this goal in 2003 at our San Diego meeting and the general feeling at the time was that it would not be possible. A combination of increased communication efficiency (Mikogo); our hardworking and dedicated committee members' pre-meetings; and our equally hard working and dedicated technical director, Bob Jasany will make this a reality in the not too distant future. The backbone of concurrent standards review was the side by side comparison of the standards, using RS-1 as our model for perfection. This and the desire for consistency through the work of the Legal Resource Committee are putting us into a position where the planets are aligning and it appears that 2012 will be our time to shine.

Many of you had commented in Ft. Myers that you truly appreciate the sense of family that you have noticed taken hold at our association meetings and I was truly thankful and appreciative of your kind words. We are family and when one of members suffers, grieves or is stricken with illness or disaster, we hurt individually and collectively. The time we spend together at our meetings is so focused and precious as we pursue the goals that are important for the greatest number and good, with our individual, commercial interests left behind. Our association and the important work we do benefit our members and the using community in ways that we never fully know and appreciate.

I look forward to seeing each of you in Baltimore and wish you the best for the remainder of the summer and the beauty and relief we realize in the autumn months.

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Web Sling & Tie Down Association

2105 Laurel Bush Rd. • Suite 200 • Bel Air, MD 21015 • phone: 443-640-1070 • fax: 443-640-1031 • wstda@ksgroup.org • www.wstda.com