Reflect Forward: PIDA Program Pleases Plenty

The Pet Industry Distributors Association (PIDA) concluded the formal activities of its “Reflect Forward” management conference and annual meeting in Carlsbad, Calif., last night with the installation of new officers and directors at a dinner event. The conference continues through Thursday with private meetings between individual manufacturers and distributors (essentially a speed-dating approach to allow executives to discuss business relationships) and various networking and social activities. (For example, as I write this, more than a busload of attendees have set off to Escondido to tour Orfila Vineyards and Winery and Stone Brewery—and to sample their wines and ales. What a treat. Sigh.)

During the dinner, Perry Parks of Wolverton Inc. assumed the chairman position from Fred Schober of Phillips Feed & Pet Supply. Randy Reber of Animal Supply Co. became vice chairman and Scott Rath of Central Garden & Pet Supply became secretary/treasurer. 

With this election, PIDA changed its by-laws to consolidate the first and second vice chairman positions into a single vice chairman, in part due to industry consolidation and other by-laws that limited the number of officers and directors from any member to one). Rob Chouinard of Gardner Distributing Co., first vice chairman until last night, retired from the PIDA board, as did Mike Copeland of Summit Pet Product Distributors, which merged with Reber’s company earlier this month. 

Rath was also elected to a new three-year term as a director, as was Robert Johnson of Pet Food Wholesale. Newly elected to three-year terms were Ced Damby of Pet Food Ltd. Inc. and Steve Thoeny of RFG Distributing.

In addition to the second vice chairperson position, PIDA did away with its annual Distributor and Manufacturer awards, at least for the year. The group is looking to revamp the program in an effort to recognize more specific achievements. The past several years the awards went to the companies with the highest marks on bench-marking surveys. (Both manufacturers and distributors still receive their “report cards” from the bench-marking surveys, when their respective partners rate them on various attributes, but the program has been disengaged from the awards).

PIDA will, however, be promoting itself more this year at trade shows and within the trade press. Specifically, PIDA will be emphasizing the collective size of its distributor members. Together, 55 regional distributors boast annual sales of more than $3 billion at wholesale ($4.13 billion in retail sales). They deliver these products through 124 distribution centers, 9.5 million square feet of warehouse space, 600 field sales reps and 6,700 overall employees. In addition, more than 39,000 attendees from 19,000 retail accounts attend 98 regional trade shows hosted by these distributors.

A highlight of the dinner was the auctioning off of two paintings created earlier in the day by artist Erik Wahl, one of the featured speakers, during his presentation. (A third painting of basketball legend Michael Jordon was given away to Craig Brummell of Essex Topcrop Sales during the presentation itself.) The auction, a benefit for the Pet Care Trust and its Pets in the Classroom program, raised $5,500, with Michael Baker of Pet Food Experts buying a painting of the Statue of Liberty for $3,200 and Marsha Seekins of Absorption Corp. buying a painting of Steve Jobs for $2,300.

Wahl created each painting in about five minutes during his “The Art of Vision” presentation, which tried to help attendees nurture and develop “unconventional wisdom,” creativity and innovation. Because an element of his presentation is surprise, I won’t share much of it lest I spoil the fun of any fortunate enough to see him in the future. One point he made was that our schools mis-educate our students by training them to seek the one right answer rather than rewarding them for discovering alternative possibilities. (See his blog on “Broken Education.")

Overwhelmingly, attendees were very pleased with this year’s speakers, including Wahl, Rick Barrera, Scott Bender and Michael Johnson. I wrote about Johnson’s Battleground Pet presentation yesterday and will be providing more details on the Barrera and Bender presentations in the coming days.

The meeting also included an overview of the Pet Industry Database (PIDB) by Craig Cervenka of EdgeNet, a partner in the repository of pet product information. In addition to participating manufacturers and distributors, the database now also provides “certified product information” to search engines Google and Bing. EdgeNet’s status as a recognized provider of product data to Google should allow its product information to appear higher in search results.