14 KEYNOTES NOVEMBER 2023 WWW.ALOA.ORG AUTOMOTIVE SPOTLIGHT The Inaugural IAAL Convention Is a Wrap! A s president of IAAL, I want to start off with a thank you to the board of IAAL: Don- nie Sherfield, Jeff Bak- er, Travis Wright and Manny Natal. This has been a group effort to pull off this first convention. In addition, ALOA staff — Mary, Dawne, Joe, Kelly and Kathy — kept all the behind-the-scenes things flowing. Having eight classrooms, 23 in- structors, 16 exhibitors, 255 registered at- tendees and two special guests at the first event was fantastic in my book. The instructors put in an enormous amount of time preparing for these class- es, showing up before class getting set up, teaching the class and packing up afterward. It’s a major undertaking, not to mention how much money they lose being away from their businesses. Thank you to Taylor Anzalone, Greg Brandt, Tony Cagle, Jeremy Crocker, Eric Deem- ers, Paul Finstrom, Dan Flarko, Yaser Jafar, Jason Jaudon, Brandon Lambert, Rafael Marte, Manny Natal, James Portie, Sean Preuss, Jenifer Richards, Donnie Sherfield, Jammie Skinner, Brian Suggs, Eric Tucker and Travis Wright for putting on an awesome three days of education. Ben Turner with the Lishi escape con- test was a hit too, and my hat's off to the young lady who won, as I did not enter af- ter seeing her time. I also need to mention that American Key Supply, Lock Labs and Key Innovations all made huge con- tributions to the education at this event. Door prizes were donated by Ilco, Lock Labs, STRATTEC and IAAL. Sponsors included American Key Supply, Key In- novations, UHS and STRATTEC. Missouri Kansas Locksmith Associa- tion (MKLA) was in attendance as a lo- cal representative. The BBQ was pretty good except the last night, which was even better. That last night, Cadillac Jack picked up a group of us and took us to Woodyard Barbeque. Hands down, they were the best ribs I have ever had in my life. Jim and Suzan Hetchler — the driv- ing force behind Just Cars and my good friends — stopped by for a visit. Casey Camper and Gordon Racine drove up from Colorado just to help with any hic- cups. Good friends. Besides the education going on in the classrooms, the hallways and show floor were where the network- ing was happening. Thank you Mr. Bill Mandlebaum (ALOA president) for all your help, including proctoring the 12 PRP test takers. The Next Convention Not even two weeks passed before we started planning the next show. The en- tire board— including newly elected member Stephen Hoffman — had our first Zoom conference to plan the next event. It was a little close to the ALOA Convention, but it is what we had to work with. I hope we can take this and build on it for the future. This was the first convention, but not the last, if I can help it. See y’all at the next go-around. Ed Woods is the senior lock- smith and company trainer at Lockout Express LLC. He’s also an instructor for ALOA and several distribu- tors. He serves on the board of IAAL as president.
