IACAC President’s Letter – October, 2014

What a difference a day makes, huh? Warm all weekend and Monday and BANG, a face full of fall Tuesday. Candidly, it suits me fine. It's tough to think apple picking, hot cider and pumpkins when it's north of eighty degrees.Pumpkin farm

As I mentioned in the opening few paragraphs of The Pallet, we're entering the final quarter of my tenure as President of IACAC, and it has been one that has seen some significant advancement of the organization. My commitment was to return the organization to the prominence it had in its early days. We've been around since 1955. That's a very long time with a lot of history (we keep a list of Past Presidents if you ever want to read it) and a diverse collection of leadership from airlines and freight forwarders alike.

My goal was to reengage airlines this year, and I feel that we've done a great job of that to date. But we're not done. Three more months to go and we're not going to coast over the finish line.

Two don't miss events - Transportation Night (10/8) and our monthly luncheon (10/14).

I know, I know, it's hard to imagine that I'd spend a lot of time promoting things, but here I am doing just that.

Next Wednesday night is the annual Transportation Night that is put on by the Traffic Club of Chicago. I wrote about it here and we sent out an email about it last Friday, but I'm going to still tell everyone to put it on their calendars and make sure they attend. Besides the fact it's at the Rosewood (a venue that plays host to many events for the Traffic Club, ITA/GC and others), when you look at all the organizations who are participating you can't not be there. It's free, there's little on television to compete with, and if you have to, just record it and watch it when you get home.

The following week, on Tuesday, October 14th, we are pleased to be hosting Brandon Fried from the Airforwarders Association. Brandon is their Executive Director and absolutely plugged in to what is happening in Washington, DC. Brandon is a member of the prestigious COAC committee which advises Customs on policy and is also instrumental in working with regulatory agencies like FAA, DOT and TSA when it comes to how much air forwarders can and should be regulated. He's a great speaker who is candid and very approachable in his comments and we've asked him to come with a packed presentation on everything from infrastructure funding to the current economic climate for air cargo and the move to a paperless environment. Go here to register.

Next month - elections

The IACAC is preparing a slate of candidates to be voted on at next month's luncheon. Like government, we, too, hold elections in November. Continue to watch this space for an announcement with the names of who is being put forth.