Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week 2009 will be held Feb. 16-19 in Orlando, Fla., at the Orange County Convention Center. A combined management structure for the event has been finalized with the announcement of a new agreement between the three conference organizers: Heavy Duty Distribution Association, Heavy Duty Manufacturers Association and the Commercial Vehicle Solutions Network.
“CVSN is pleased to be an integral part of HDAW,” says Ken Duval, CVSN chair and president of Canadian Wheel. “This ownership agreement demonstrates that all of the major players are focused on making our industry stronger. CVSN remains a distributor-focused association. We believe that we will help make HDAW even better because we bring a strong distributor orientation to the ownership and management of the event.”
HDAW is the largest North American gathering of the independent heavy-duty industry. More than 1,800 managers and executives from 17 countries — including distributors, manufacturers, service providers, educators and media — attended the 2008 conference.
“The tremendous success of HDAW ’08 was the initial product of a great team effort between the HDAW organizers (HDDA and HDMA), CVSN and the HDAW Joint Operating Committee,” says Joe McAleese, president and chief executive officer of Bendix CVS and HDMA’s 2008 chairman. “This effective partnership and cooperation has helped to elevate the annual HDAW conference to a new level, and we expect it will continue to improve with each passing year.”
HDAW 09 will include exclusive conference time for prescheduled one-on-one meetings between distributors and supplier executives; a comprehensive distributor education, best practices and information program; a product exposition; an expanded HDAW annual industry awards program; multiple networking opportunities for distributors and suppliers; and separate schedule periods for individual sponsor and company events.
“One of the objectives of HDAW is to have a common platform where distributor issues can be discussed, appropriate plans created, and actions implemented,” says Dave Scheer, HDDA chair and president of Inland Truck Parts Co. “Having CVSN as an organizer and its members as active participants establishes HDAW as an all-industry event where this objective is achieved.”
