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December 14, 2000 United Association of Equipment Leasing Year 2000 Letter December 13, 2000 Dear Leasing Colleague, The first year of the new millennium has brought tremendous change to our association. These changes reflect the rapidly evolving business environment in which we participate and the desires of the UAEL leadership to position our Association as the premiere trade organization in the equipment leasing industry. One major change that bears mentioning is the departure from the UAEL family of Dr. Raymond Williams. Ray has served the UAEL membership as Executive Vice President for the past 8 years. During his tenure the UAEL grew from a 275 member association with a geographical concentration in the Western US to a National Leasing organization that is 582 members strong as of this year Many of you may not realize that the year 2000 marked the first time in the Associations 25 year history that 50% of our membership is located east of the Mississippi River. We would like to wish Dr. Williams all the best as he faces new challenges in his distinguished career. The leadership of the UAEL also tackled some tough issues at its board meetings this year. These discussions were primarily centered on delivering maximum value for the hard earned dollars that each of us invests in our Association each year through membership dues, sponsorships, volunteerism, and our attendance at national and regional conferences. As a result of this effort the UAEL Board of Directors voted to make changes in NewsLine, the Membership Directory and the UAEL web site. These changes will save our members thousands of dollars in the coming years and give future leadership the latitude to re-deploy assets into increasingly better member benefits: - NewsLine will become a 'real time", electronic publication. This time tested member benefit has been re engineered to reflect the increasing demand for the information that is the life-blood of our industry Leveraging our web site www.uael.org, we will be able to bring you the education, information and stories that you need to manage your business in a rapidly changing e-commerce environment. - The UAEL Membership Directory is now "on line" at www.uael.org: The membership directory is now an on line directory that can be updated on an hourly basis rather than a yearly basis. If one of our members relocates, changes a company name, adds a broker or discounting program, evolves from a broker to a funding source, or experiences any ny of the myriad changes that a company can go through in this industry that member can immediately update their profile in the on-line directory. - We have added a "members only' section to our web site. You will need a username and password to log-in to this section. You may obtain these from our staff by e-mailing phong@uael.org. - You will soon be able to use our exclusive "on-line" sign up sheets to make your appointments, well in advance, for the winter funding retreats. The funding sources that will be exhibiting at the retreats will be able to retrieve that information and confirm appointments. Once the funding retreats are over, the templates that we've developed for this function can be used for regional events and the Annual Convention and Exposition (ACE). By using our web site for advanced planning both our funding source and broker/lessor members will have the opportunity to make maximum use of the time and money directed at the 'face to face" retreat meetings These are just a few of the member benefits that will be available at www.uael.org. There will be many more to come in 2001, including distance learning" programs that will allow our members to leverage the web site to educate back office staff and sales people, a download site for software and conference programs, an archive of the back issues of NewsLine, a chat area and list serve for our members, and an on-line books section where members will be able to purchase books on finance, accounting, sales training, human resources, e-commerce, technology, software and web site development. It has been my pleasure to serve as your president for the year 2000. As the immediate past president I will look forward to following through with many of the projects we started this year but require additional time to complete. The UAEL is a vital and growing organization whose leadership and membership are committed to making it the best trade association in the industry. I hope that you are as proud as I am to be a part of its continued success. In closing I hope you will join me in wishing President Elect Chuck Brazier, CLP all the best during his 2001 term. There is no person I know that exemplifies the spirit of the UAEL better than this man. Chuck is one of the members of this Association that I had the good fortune to meet early in my leasing career. He has been a friend, an advisor, and a mentor for the 15 years I have belonged to this organization. Chuck has a deep understanding and respect for the traditions of the Association that we all want to as we engineer the change that will allow the UAEL to continue its growth in the new millennium. May all the best be with you and yours through this Holiday season and into the New Year. Sincerely
Bob
Rodi,
www.leasingnews.org
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