High PAU Altitude, Soft Texlured Growth t BUNYAN LUMBE

I T HAS been some time since I LMA representatives other than the -association staff have visited dealers.

This month I have planned field visits along with our executive vice president Harry Mendenhall to several member yards. I feel it is important to visit you in your yard and to discuss general business problems and areas in which the association may provide

In looking at the broad expanse of our area it will be impossible to call on every dealer but we will give it all we have to visit as many as possible. It will take several weeks to accomplish what we have in mind but the end result will be a better understanding and possible improvement in programs.

Our first schedule will take us up through Marin County, north to Ukiah, then across to Yuba City, Marysville, Grass Valley, to the Reno-Tahoe area and back down through the Sacramento area. Although we have an idea regarding the number of visits we want to make in that week we will be unable to give you a precise schedule of the time we will be in each location. It will take more time with some dealers and when you cover an area as large as ours it is impossible to make definite appointments unless you schedule each yard separately and double back and forth across the area.

I am interested in your particular views of business, customer trends, long range business plans, expansions, new merchandising ideas, materials handling ideas, customer and product mif and meeting requirements demanded by iederal and state regulations. All of these ideas will assist the executive committee and board of directors in determining goals and priorities of the association.

All of the association committees strive to meet the needs of each member regardless of size of operation, gross sales, do-it-yourself or contractor orientation. The needs of all must be met if we are to serve members as an association should.

In my observations thus far as president of LMA I find two critical areas of concern. The first and highest priority is the continuing need for employee training. New products, turn-over in employees and stagnation are continually taking place. To meet these requirements the association is on the move to develop training programs to use in the store for employee training. It must be standard procedure to schedule periodic employee training sessions. We must keep all employees abreast of new products and uses, sales techniques, customer attitudes and professionalism in retail sales. If you are not scheduling after hours training sessions you are doing yourself and your employees an injustice.

The second area of concern is legislation. Frankly, it is becoming almost an insurmountable task to cope with thousands of proposed bills at th6 state and federal levels.

In all the history of the United States there has never been a period of legislative activity such as we are currently facing. Sure, environmental groups are exerting tremendous pressures so are consumer groups, but the greatest threat seems to be from federal agencies which are attempting their own perpetuation and growth of empires based upon the legislation they say is necessary to protect all of us.