May 9, 2000

Bad News from Cindy Spurdle, former Executive Director of NAELB---

"Kit--

It was great to meet you finally. Thank you for arranging to get the AOL Disks to hand out. That was a great idea. I would like to also make sure that the two page handout you provided about free access to the internet so every one could have an Email address is provided to all of our members.

Unfortunately, I won't be involved much longer. The Board voted to turn the management of the Association over completely to the Prime Management Services. They have eliminated my position altogether. I'm sure they will be notifying all the members of their decision.

Best of luck to you in the future and I know that it would surely be a benefit to the association and especially its brokers' members to have you actively involved as we discussed.

Thank you,

Cindy"

The NAELB Conference in Nashville, Tennessee was attended by over 400 brokers, spouses, presenters, and friends.
The workshops were terrific and well attended. At the Liaison Committee meeting much of the discussion centered around what to do with the surplus funds now available, where to invest them. The idea continues to be keep the dues low, don't add staff, pay for additional services on a need-by-need basis, link everyone by e-mail and eliminate the need for paper newsletters, increase the membership to 1,000 and continue to keep the organization primarily for the small broker, have an enforceable ethnic program to go both ways: applying to broker and funder.

Dave Pitman was given an award for helping form the association ( I was not there as I could not hear from the outside table, there was a major overflow and talking to my very good friends Tom Landmark of Manifest and Jane Hackforth of Advanta, Steve Crane of Bank of the West ,who's party saved them seats. I joined Cindy and the people who were running the show and now NAELB, and left soon after eating ). Mike Meacher was elected President and new directors are Bob Bell and Gerry Egan.

Recipient of the Bill Granieri "Top Gun" Memorial Award was Sudhir P.Amembal.

Host John Winchester did a super job, even had the mayor of Nashville, Tennessee make a speech, which was short, to the point, and very friendly. What a great city!!!!

I think the most exciting thing I saw at the conference was the new "On Line Reporting" now available to Manifest brokers. It is simple. It is easy to use. It is fantastic. It has about almost everything a broker or discounter could use, and it is FREE!!!! The people in Marshall, Minnesota must have read Bill Gates "Business@The Speed of Thought."

Alan Collier of Total Funding.com took the conference by storm, appearing everywhere, meeting everyone, getting fully involved, including a terrific Friday night party. He was accompanied by three of his staff, including Dennis Doyon, Steve Warren, and Joan Lamond. They worked the rooms like I have never seen before, as if they were running for a political office. Very impressive program and opportunity for brokers to join the digital age.

They also want to contribute a scholarship for those who can't afford to come to meetings, become a "Diamond Sponsor" and get more involved. Their e-commerce program is the only one I have seen that is designed for lease brokers to join the digital age.

Speaking of that, NAELB had a booth where members could sign up for $250 and get a four page web site, customized to them, including a perl script application. Great bargain. Don't know if still available, but contact Ron Baumgardner at 205-989-6934 or 888-932-7467 ( www.webshoppe.net ). For some reason, his business card does not have an e-mail address. This is a great opportunity for all NAELB members, and also worth joining just to get this free web page and $35 for your own web name ( the actual Internic cost, no mark-up ). They also had some very attractive plans and if you don't have a web site, call them and see what they can do for you.

John Kruse, Hal Hayden, Randy Anderson from System1/Capitalstream were there, presenting their new software. The company first presented their System 1 to the brokers five years ago in Nashville, they said. The company has grown to 110 employees to service the equipment leasing community.

Bob Baker was the star of the conference, doing all day sessions, and doing a full all morning conference wrap-up ( keep costs low, golf is not that important, we need to network and set-up regional committee meetings ). Sudar Amembal, the superbroker was there with his wife, doing day workshops, working the floor to recruit broker business.

I don't know why ARMleasing was displaying their software as the basic charge was $100,000 and the second module to really make it work was $150,000 for a program developed originally for Rockford Industries. This compares to the System 1 that CapitalStream was giving out for free to NAELB members, plus waiving the first year maintenance fee. The System 1 was a much better buy, especially for single users.

I have a lot of news about some companies going out of business, changes, and some other things, but would like to confirm the "rumors" before making them "facts."