Accelerate 2020 National Sales Meeting
Our 2018/19 National Sales Meeting – “No Fear, No Limits, No Excuses” surrounded the removal of roadblocks. We spent 2019 addressing these roadblocks through sales training, marketing initiatives, and more opportunities to meet vendors. Air Power has benefited from this endeavor and our organization continues to see growth. This year our Accelerate theme represents our initiative to Accelerate into 2020 without fear and the tools necessary to overcome any roadblocks.
Wednesday
We kicked off our Accelerate 2020 Sales Meeting at our new branch location in Greenville, SC. Our team arrived around 1pm with time to tour the new facility while helping themselves to drinks and light hors d’oeuvres. The team also participated in a friendly tire changing competition with the Ingersoll Rand replica Pit Stop, designed to mimic the real nascar pitstop experience. With the shortest time of 15 seconds, Rodney Benfield was announced as the winner!
Air Power President Dan Senff kicked off the meeting by welcoming our team to Greenville. 2019 was a great year for Air Power and we were excited to share our successes with our hard working team. We spent the evening enjoying the view from Up on the Roof Bar, where Air Power hosted a happy hour event. Our team along with our Top 5 Vendor sponsors enjoyed the beautiful Downtown Greenville view while we celebrated the end of the year.
Thursday
Thursday began with breakfast in the Embassy Suites Downtown Riverplace. Our group moved into meeting space and we spent a few hours announcing some exciting process changes rolling out in 2020. Air Power is dedicated to continuous improvement to better serve not only our customers, but also our team members. At 10am, we kicked off the 2020 Product Training portion of our meeting. We gave each of our Top 5 Vendor Sponsors (Carlisle Fluid Technologies, Cleco Production Tools, Graco, Gema, and Ingersoll Rand) time with our team to focus on their 2020 initiatives. We find that when we focus on our goals as a team, it is impossible to fail.
After a day of getting our team revved up for 2020, we sent them to go get dressed up for our Banquet. The Accelerate 2020 Banquet and Awards Ceremony started with a Happy Hour in the foyer. Our team along with their spouses enjoyed mingling with our vendor sponsors. We enjoyed an amazing meal catered by Ruth’s Chris catering. As we wrapped up dinner, the Awards Ceremony began.
Our Big Winners of the night included:
2019 Filter Awards
Colmet (RP Filters)
1st Place: Austin Lambright
2nd Place: Len Morrison
3rd Place: Randy Pennington
Col-met (Sheet Metal) Award
Tommy Byrd
Kem-Wove, Inc.
1st Place: Randy Pennington
2nd Place: Shaun Patterson
3rd Place: Paul Kelly
TVS/Truflow Award
Shaun Patterson
Filter Guru Award
Shaun Patterson
Customer Service Representative Awards
Most Line Items Quoted – Ricky Graves
Most quotes – Ricky Graves
Most Line items Booked/Ordered – Ricky Graves
Most Orders – Ricky Graves
Most Calls Taken – Todd Putman
Coat (FIT) Award
Ashley Golding
Assemble and Move (AFT) Award
Shaun Patterson
Assemble and Move (TAS) Award
Zach Ritchie
Specialist of the Year
Rodney Benfield
Branch of the Year
Raleigh, NC Branch
Wayne Cassidy – Branch Manager
Account Manager of the Year
Ashley Golding
Retirement Announcements
Steve Thomas – 15 Year at Air Power (42 years in the Industry)
Ronnie Lowe – 43 years at Air Power
Robin Eanes – 46 years at Air Power
Friday
We spent Friday celebrating 2019 at Speed Factory Indoor Karting. We’d like to thank Carlisle Fluid Technologies for setting up their virtual spray painting simulator. Our team had a great time competing for the best Spray Finishing score. Everyone participated in the GO-Kart race and we spent the morning finding out, who is the fastest at Air Power. Our First Place prize went to Gary Lee! Second place went to Josh Strausbaugh and our Third Place went to Matthew Graham. We’d like to thank everybody for participating in the race!