EXECUTIVE PERSPECTIVE Time to Renew enced the ups and downs of the past year and a half, and ALOA is no exception. If you attended the Membership Meeting at the convention or read Noel Flynn’s ar- ticle in the July/August issue of Keynotes, you know that the pandemic has provided ALOA SPAI with many challenges. But through hard work and creative thinking on the part of the board and staff, we have managed to come out on the other side in great shape. F Your ALOA SPAI Benefits Although some things changed over the past year and our budget has been stretched, we are proud to have kept your member benefits intact. As we wrap up this year, it’s a great time to remind yourself of all of your member benefits. Over the years, we have done our best to provide you with increasingly more value for your membership dollars. We’ve added benefits such as the ability to pur- chase health insurance plans for yourself and your staff through our partnership with Lighthouse Insurance Group. We are happy to answer any questions, or you can call LIG directly at (888) 582-9813. Don’t forget to take advantage of all your other benefits as well. You get dis- counts on: books and materials in the ALOA Bookstore, customized ALOA ap- parel, classes, convention registration and more. You also have free $15,000 industry bonding and a free listing on the rede- signed FindALocksmith.com. 6 KEYNOTES OCTOBER 2021 all is here, and we have nearly made it through another chal- lenging year. Everyone has undoubtedly experi- If you have any questions about benefits, please contact us at [email protected]. Also, you will soon be receiving your ALOA SPAI membership renewal notices. Please be on the lookout and renew before the end of the year so you don’t have a lapse in benefits. Coming Soon Many of you have taken ALOA Educa- tion’s webinars over the past year, as this is a great way to earn some CEUs from the comfort of your home or office. We just launched a 16-week Master Keying webinar series for the fall. If you missed out on this session, we’ll hopefully have it again in the future. To see what’s coming up for webinars, look at the calendar on ALOA.org or email [email protected]. We continue to use the power of tech- nology to connect with members. We plan to launch an IAIL members-only Facebook page in the near future. I hope that our IAIL members will take advan- tage of that opportunity to connect and engage with one another. And perhaps our biggest news: The ALOA Education department, with the approval of the ALOA Board, has begun the arduous task of creating a new ALOA division specifically to meet the educa- tional and certification needs of the grow- ing community of locksmith profession- als dedicated to all things automotive. The International Association of Automotive Locksmiths (IAAL) will have a board, with its president holding a seat on the ALOA Board to represent the group. The five-seat board is composed of: one representative from a manufacturer/vendor, two ALOA ACE automotive instructors and two “at large” instructor/representatives. While the planning is still in its in- fancy, the current board, as chosen by nominations from the ad-hoc organiz- ing committee, are: Jeff Baker - Strattec; Mannie Natal - ALOA ACE Instructor; Ed Woods - ALOA ACE Instructor; Don- nie Sherfield - AKG Instructor; and Tra- vis Wright - ALOA ACE Instructor. We are excited about this group and hope to have many of the planes in place by January 2022. Thank you again for being members and for your continued support. Indeed it’s been a time of renewal for ALOA overall the past year: renewed focus, im- provement and creativity. As we enter into 2022, know that this will continue. We hope you’ll be there to see where this road takes us. Mary A. May Executive Director [email protected] WWW.ALOA.ORG
