CEO’s Message

Was it That Long Ago?

By Danny Langfield

NMEDA CEO

There is a peculiar challenge to

writing for a periodical print publication such as this, one experienced every issue, namely: Is the content I turn in at the copy deadline going to remain relevant by the time the issue reaches the

reader? For example, I am writing this on April 2 (only a week past deadline!) with the expectation that you will be reading it sometime in the first week of May. As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the world, it may be instructive to look back 30 days…on March 2, we were still 24 hours from the opening general session of the NMEDA conference. Three hundred people sitting shoulder to shoulder in a conference center ballroom; seems unthinkable now, doesn’t it? In light of all that, it feels faintly ridiculous to talk about anything contemporary at all. Instead I’d like unprecedented, at least in our lifetimes. We have done what we can thus far (keep in mind, that’s as of April 2). Two weeks ago we offered our first webinar, a general update on the government’s COVID-19 response. We followed that up the next week with a town hall webinar on how dealers were coping with the crisis. Yesterday we published an online resource that we will be updating constantly, found at nmeda.com/covid19. Tomorrow we will host another webinar with one of our attorneys detailing the specifics of the Paycheck Protection Program, part of the federal CARES Act intended to provide forgivable loans to small businesses such as yours.

I hope you will reach out to me if you have any suggestions as to how the association can be of more assistance to our members and the industry. There is certainly no playbook for this, and all ideas are welcome.”

“Back then we were just starting to realize that shaking hands with folks was probably not a great idea—but most of us did it anyway. We drank together at the bars, sat together in classrooms, chatted (in groups larger than 10) in the expo…it was a different time. Heck, Tom Brady was still a New England Patriot back then. to briefly talk about something to which I’ve given a lot of thought over the last several weeks: the role of an association in a time like this. In speaking with my peers, one theme remains constant—no one knows what our roles are. The term “unprecedented” is being worn out, but it’s still accurate—this is literally

Throughout, we have been sharing the latest developments in our weekly Short Circuit email, in direct emails as needed, and on our LinkedIn page.

I know it’s not enough—I feel like we should be doing more. I hope you will reach out to me if you have any suggestions as to how the association can be of more assistance to our members and the industry. There is certainly no playbook for this, and all ideas are welcome.

Many of you have been kind enough to inquire about the health, safety, and working conditions of the NMEDA staff. We are very fortunate to be in a line of business that permits a significant amount of our work to be conducted remotely, so we have been doing just that. We started last week, assuming our intrepid Florida governor would issue a “stay at home” order at any moment. We were a bit early, as it turned out—the order finally came yesterday, and goes into effect tomorrow. We are all continuing to work remotely and will be doing so until the end of April at the very least.

Thanks to my predecessor, Dave Hubbard, and the disciplined governance of the board over the last decade, the association has built and maintained a reserve fund to help us make it through unforeseen conditions exactly like what we are facing today. Depending on how the situation unfolds over the next several months, we may have to consider accessing that fund. But in the short term, we are relatively secure.

In closing, please let us know if we can do anything for you. Our association exists to serve you, the members. Do not hesitate to be in touch if we can do anything at all to assist.