This is my final From the CEO for 2015; the next time you’ll get a chance to argue with one of my published rants, another year will have past into history.
The end of the year is always my time to reflect on the last 12 months. It’s when I get to bask in our successes and to reevaluate where we need to redouble our efforts in the coming year.
As I’m writing this, we’re just getting back from the 2015 Expo. This year’s event was an amazing success; attendance was terrific and we received tremendous feedback from those who joined us. I don’t know if it was, as ATRA President Jim Rodd predicted, the best ever — to be honest I’m not sure how to judge that — but it had to be right up there.
Expo provides a lot for those who attend, but one thing we rarely discuss is how valuable it is to us here at ATRA. It gives us a chance to meet with our audience, face to face, and receive instant feedback about what we’ve been doing to help steer our industry. And that feedback helps us target our approach for the year ahead.
Which means that the people who joined us at this year’s Expo had a hand in charting our course for the future. If you were among those who came to Expo and made your thoughts known, thank you. If you didn’t make it this year, well, the 2016 Expo is just a few months away; maybe next year will be your year to help plan our industry’s future.
No doubt about it, we have a lot to reflect on this year. And nothing gives us more pause than the fact that the issue you’re reading right now — the December 2015 issue — is our 200th issue of GEARS Magazine.
200 issues — it simply boggles the mind.
The first issue came out in the summer of 1992. Back then we published four issues a year: summer, fall, winter, and spring. And, for those who were wondering, yes: I wrote three articles for that very first issue.
GEARS was originally created to give us a vehicle to advertise our new trade show, the 1993 Expo. We needed to market that event and we needed a way to reach out to the industry on a regular basis.
Back then, GEARS was very different from the professional, finely tuned magazine you’re paging through. To begin with, it was tabloid sized instead of the standard magazine size, which made it a lot more expensive to print and a lot more difficult to keep on your bookshelves. No doubt about it: We had a lot to learn.
And learn we did. Since then, we’ve tightened up our creative development, streamlined our editorial process, brought in regular and guest contributors to diversify our subject matter, and redesigned our appearance.
Today, GEARS Magazine is arguably the world’s leading publication specifically targeted for the transmission repair industry, and has won numerous awards for writing and design.
That doesn’t mean we’re planning to sit back and rest on our laurels. For 2016, we’re working to expand into a global market, to share our knowledge with folks all around the world… and to help bring their knowledge to our side of the ocean.
The reason for that is diversification: Over the last few years, we’ve taken part in events in Frankfort, Amsterdam, and the United Arab Emirates. The one thing that’s stood out is that a lot of what we struggle with in the U.S. is business-as-usual for them. A Mercedes is as familiar there as a Chevy is to us.
They have the tools… they have the services… and they have the knowledge that we need. And we have a lot to share with them. It’s the ultimate win-win, and it’s ours for the taking. All we need to do is expand our borders. It’s a move that has us all excited.
As the year draws to a close, it’s a great time to reflect on where we’ve been… and to plan where we’re headed. In this, our 200th issue of GEARS, I can honestly say, I like where we’re headed.
