Hello Fleet Professionals!
Last week my business partner (Don Taylor) and I journeyed to the Big Apple and northern New Jersey to visit some clients and to attend a joint NAFA New Jersey and New York Chapter meeting. Whenever I plan a trip to the region, I always make an effort to attend a meeting of one of these chapters. They each have a long tradition of hosting meetings that offer a terrific educational opportunity and great networking. So when they join forces it's something extra special. Add in a sponsorship by Mercedes-Benz Fleet Operations and you've got a one of a kind meeting in a one of a kind venue!
For those of you not familiar with the USS Intrepid or New York City, let me take a moment to explain. The Intrepid is one of the most successful ships in naval history. It started it's service during World War II and is now a national historic landmark docked on the Hudson River in New York City. Not only does the ship offer incredible views of the New York Skyline but it also serves as the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.
The opportunity to see this great ship is more than enough of a draw for most people. The hosting Chapters also provided two outstanding speakers for the assembled group of roughly 150 fleet professionals. The first speaker was Andrew Littlefair, the President and CEO of Clean Energy. If the company sounds familiar it should. T. Boone Pickens has been talking about it for the last year, especially through the election cycle. Mr. Littlefair addressed the group about clean air technologies and covered everything from windmills through hydrogen, nitrogen and other sources of energy. The second speaker was Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor of NJ and former Presidential Cabinet Member. She spoke to us about the government policies surrounding alternative forms of energy and clean air. To say that this was a serious and extremely sobering meeting would be an understatement. To listen to the speakers we are headed towards more government regulation of emissions and how we manage our fleets.
By now you're probably thinking that I'm going to give you a blow by blow of the speeches and the history of the ship. Not true. I bring this meeting and these topics up for a simple reason: they are examples of what's good about NAFA and what we have to look forward to over the coming years in our fleets. Both of these topics I have been writing about for the last several months in these blog entries.
First let's talk a little about the meeting and the people that put it together. These are all hard working fleet professionals who freely volunteer their time to share the wealth of information that we all own individually. They have devoted countless hours of their personal time, time away from their families and their jobs to lead their peers for the betterment of all. They are great examples of what everyone of us can achieve professionally if we set our minds to it.
Secondly, our jobs will continue to get more difficult in the coming years. Clean air, Cafe emissions and the environment are all serious and important issues but is this the time to put further requirements on corporations when the entire economy, and the car industry in particular, are still reeling from the worst economic crisis in recent history? As much as any of us may want to complain about it this is where we are so we must deal with it.
So what can we do about this? Make no mistake we are all in this together. There is strength in numbers so the first place to start is your local NAFA Chapter. If you're a Chapter Leader, start looking at meetings that are "hard-core" fleet topics that allow for the exchange of ideas and thinking outside the box. Topic speakers are great, but how about round table discussions that could be used to generate ideas and ways of dealing with the plant shutdowns, financing issues and the environment, just to name a few. You might be surprised how much take away you'll have from that kind of a meeting if you do it right!
Don't stop there! Take some of those ideas back to your office and try some of them out. Look at unbundling some of those services, the ones that really drive up your costs and those that directly affect your depreciation, like remarketing.
If you are a regular reader of these entries, you have probably picked up on a common theme. We are living and working in a very interesting time. The rate of changes we are experiencing are coming at us more and more quickly. At the same time government involvement in business is also growing. The only tools we have to combat these forces are our experience and our network of contacts, that make our presence even more valuable for our employers. Use every tool at your disposal to make yourself the most indispensable asset your company has - and keep doing it!
Keep your chin up, and let me know what you think!
Cheers!
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