ver 50 PSMA members and guests attended the PSMA Annual Meeting, held at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, FL. The buffet breakfast before the start of the meeting provided attendees an opportunity for networking and reconnecting with colleagues. Chair Fred Weber officially opened the meeting by welcoming all the attendees and asked each to briefly introduce themselves. Among those present were many of the recipients of the APEC Student Attendance Support provided for the twelfth straight year by IAS, PELS and PSMA.

Fred Weber, PSMA Chair

After the introductions the nominees for open three-year terms to the PSMA Board of Directors were introduced. Votes were collected during the approval of the 2022 Annual Meeting minutes and the winners were announced after a break midway through the meeting. The new board members are:

John Bultitude
Stephanie Watts Butler
David Chen
Andrea Gorgerino

Deepak Veereddy was also elected to fill the board seat vacated by Thomas Foulkes and will serve for the two years left in the term. Fred thanked outgoing board members Ada Cheng, Dhaval Dalal and Brian Zahnstecher for their hard work and dedication to PSMA.

Fred Weber then gave the Chair's Report highlighting our strengthening of our strategic partnerships with PELS, IAS, iNemi and IPC and adding ITEC as a new partner to help increase focus on the transportation industry. Fred also talked about the work done to build the relationship between committees.

Fred also discussed the efforts to change our membership categories and policies including the ability to run a special promotion during APEC to attract new members to the PSMA fold.  He indicated that changing membership categories will be an ongoing effort.

During the President's Report Trifon Liakopoulis presented the suggestions for new membership categories – Regular, Associate and Affliate with Associate being a new category. The Associate Member category is intended for companies that are not manufacturers but are larger in size – over 20 employees.  He also said that the Affiliate Member category could be applied to smaller (less than 20 employee) manufacturers who were previously treated as Regular Members.  He also emphasized how the recent changes in the PSMA bylaws allow us much more flexibility in creating membership categories.

Renee Yawger gave the KPI Update. She said the goal for membership growth is 3% per year. We experience a 7% increase in membership in 2022 but this was attributed to the ending of the COVID-19 pandemic and was mainly in the Affiliate Member category.  Renee highlighted some of the KPIs for our special projects and webinars – PTR webinars averaged 140 attendees with an 85% attendance rate, PSMA Educational Webinars averaged 190 attendees with an 86% attendance rate. She looked also at our web traffic KPIs and said we have seen a doubling of our Social Media referrals since the start of the Marketing Committee's Social Media project.

Each of the PSMA Committees presented its report for the accomplishments of the past year and future plans. The PSMA Committee reports are covered in a separate article.  Approximately halfway through the committee reports PSMA Treasurer Tim McDonald presented the financial outlook for PSMA.

Pradeep Shenoy, APEC 2023 General Chair

Tim reported that after the interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that APEC has rebounded faster than expected. Net revenue for PSMA remain fairly flat and will remain that way until the APEC 2023 revenue is received in June of 2024. Thus far in 2023 PTR Underwriting is lower than had been hoped but the dues increase has helped fill the gap. The goal is to see our assets grow significantly over the next six quarters as conference revenues increase.

Pradeep Shenoy, the APEC 2023 General Chair, was then introduced and declared that "APEC is back!" He highlighted that APEC introduced several new features for 2023 – a Student Job Fair, on-site childcare, a Student Competition Fair (including Micromouse, First Robotics, and Empower a Billion Lives). He said that attendance for APEC 2023 was expected to be at the same level as the last Orlando APEC (2017). He also indicated that APEC will be transitioning management companies from SmithBucklin to MMS for next year's APEC. Finally, he introduced Tim McDonald as the General Chair for APEC 2024.

The invited speaker at this year's Annual Meeting was Francis Mullany of iNEMI who was unfortunately unable to attend in person. However, Francis provided a recording of a presentation highlighting the history of iNEMI and their mission. He described an ecosystem of roadmaps from iNEMI, IPSR, IRDS and, of course, PSMA. Francis said that roadmaps are very helpful in strategic planning for organizations in order to be successful. His presentation was very well received by all in attendance.

After the presentation by iNemi recognition was given to several PSMA members for their outstanding contributions over the past year. These included our outgoing board members Ada Cheng, Dhaval Dalal and Brian Zahnstecher. In addition, John Bultitude, Mike Hayes and Conor Quinn were given awards for outstanding leadership.

John Bultitude receives his award for Outstanding Leadership

Brian Zahnstecher receives his award for Outstanding Contributions

Dhaval Dalal receives his award for Outstanding Contributions

Ada Cheng receives her award for Outstanding Contributions

Mike Hayes receives his award for Outstanding Leadership

Colin Quinn receives his award for Outstanding Leadership

Before adjourning, Chair Fred Weber asked the attendees for their comments and any suggestions for the future directions and activities for the Association that would increase the value of their membership. Several areas were discussed and will be considered by the Board. Fred thanked all presenters and attendees for their participation and invited interested individuals to attend the March meeting of the PSMA Board of Directors, which immediately followed.

Following the Annual Meeting, PSMA Committee meetings, as well as the technical sessions, seminars, Industry Presentations, exhibits and other events kept PSMA members busy all the week. The APEC social event gave everyone a chance to relax and enjoy themselves and was welcomed by all in attendance.

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