Cheryl, Taryn, Gloria and I attended the 2014 NAEO (National Amtelco Equipment Owners) 30th Annual Conference earlier this month. Yet another great event! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “It never ceases to amaze me how helpful and willing to share knowledge the people in this industry are!” So to keep in the spirit of the organization, here’s a summary of our experiences this trip! 

An overview of this year’s conference highlights and take-aways:

• This years’ conference was held in Dallas, TX at the Omni Hotel. It is a beautiful new hotel close to shopping, restaurants and historical landmarks like the JFK Memorial. Luckily we were able to see a little bit of the area while we were there!

• Reconnecting with friends and industry colleagues, making new ones, and serving as conference ‘buddies’ for first timers.

• Keynote speaker Cy Wakeman is a national keynote speaker, business consultant, New York Times bestselling author, and trainer.  Her message showed people how to turn excuses into results and transform unhappy employees into accountable ones.

• We got some face time with Amtelco and TAS Innovations. Once again our amazing vendors are working to implement changes we have requested!

• There were great Operations, Sales/Marketing and Technical breakout sessions as well as the wonderful Round Tables discussions! The four of us split up so we could attend as many sessions as possible. Still wish I could be in two places at once sometimes!

An overview of the technical and software information we learned:

• Very excited about our journey into SQL! The possibilities seem to be endless!

• I attended the Amtelco Infinity maintenance session again this year and still took over a page of notes!

• New ideas to ‘up our game’ for in-house call rating

• Cheryl and Taryn both attended the IS course and have some great ideas to move forward with!

• Think like a franchise and replicate ALL processes

• Don’t Turn Ropes into snakes!

Other memories and things we learned on our adventure:

• Texas is the land of contrast from the vibrant colors in their landscape to their forms of energy production.

• Cheryl and Taryn love free stuff!

• Towels are multi – purpose. They can be towels, shawls, bonnets, and so much more!

• Bill can form any cowboy hat using the condensation from his glass.

• Texas loves their food – felt like we were on a ‘foodie’ holiday!

• As good as it sounds, we don’t want an office filled with BMW’s!

• Playing the church game in Texas is a bit overkill.

• Abilene is like a mini vortex – hard to leave!

• HWY 90 is elusive.

 All in all it was a fantastic trip! Thank you to everyone at the conference and of course everyone at the office who covered for us while we were gone!