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President’s Message – September 2018

As you may recall my August President's message focused on the Association's recent announcement about changes to our Membership and organizational configuration. Our Board of Directors has created both a new “Pet Food Council” and a new integrated Council/Network structure. These changes have created two new Pet Food Board member seats, and expanded opportunities for involvement, coverage, and participation across an even wider spectrum of the food, beverage and packaging industries. Following this announcement, we issued calls for volunteers to serve in both the new Council and Networks. I am very pleased to report that the response for participation on the new Pet Food Council has been met with a great amount of interest while the nucleus of the newly created Networks (Food Safety, Packaging, Technology) are still in the processing of forming. There is still time for you and your colleagues to volunteer and serve on our new Networks by emailing Dolores Alonso at dalonso@fpsa.org, and I encourage you to do so.

Given the fact that Networks are an entirely new concept, I want to take this opportunity to further explain the importance and value of our new structure. While Councils have a vertical focus for the industry segment in which they operate, FPSA Networks will focus on specific areas of work that span across all segments of the food and beverage industry. Members of each of our five Networks will engage in substantive work as determined by each particular Network regardless of which segment (or Councils) the participants represent. As you can see from the new matrix structure below, information will flow down from Councils and up from Networks to inform and educate Councils on critical topics or create a platform for new networking and career opportunities moving up into the vertical segments for Network members. Hence, creating all important bridges across our vertical structure that will enhance the exchange of ideas and bring new and unique perspectives to tackling common challenges and solving problems together – all of which will allow the Association to provide more meaningful content and services to the membership.

Additionally, I want to provide you with one last reminder of a great opportunity to attend our September 17th-19th Sales Conference where over 140 of your colleagues will gather in Chicago to focus exclusively on best practices in the modern sales environment in the food & beverage processing and packaging industry. The conference is close to being sold out, so hurry to register now.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me at dseckman@fpsa.org at 703-663-1200 with any questions about our new structure, concerns, or how the Association can be of assistance to you. I look forward to seeing you at the upcoming conference in Chicago.

Sincerely,
David Seckman
President/CEO, FPSA