The Chairman's Corner

By Jesse Chabot

June 2023

As we wind down from a great convention and start to ramp up for the moving season (hopefully), I’d like to take a second to reflect on this year’s convention. I would like to thank everybody that helped make this convention a great one, CMSA President Steve Weitekamp, his staff, all the speakers, and especially all the event partners and exhibitors.

I think a lot of us went into this Convention excited to get some new information on the GHC and having multiple days scheduled with Home Safe Alliance was a great idea. I thank Steve Weitekamp and Chuck White for their hard-hitting questions, unfortunately, I think we left with a lot more questions than answers.

Once again, as I look at the GHC, I think the value of the CMSA is very apparent. As our staff and members look to continue to be a voice for the boots at the curb and the brick-and-mortar moving companies that support them, we need to develop a communication channel to share our concerns and look for solutions. I believe that because of our association’s size and active membership participation, we have that ability.

I think Ryan Bowley of the ATA MSC’s presentation, and the Van Line panel were very eye-opening about where we sit as an industry.

I would like to say a special thank you to all my friends and family that helped out as Sovann and I hosted the reception in our room. It was great to have all of our friends, Chairmans from the past, and their spouses reminiscing on stories from past conventions. Thank you to everybody that came out, obviously, there was a very tall surprise guest that everybody got to take pictures with and have a little fun with. As we jumped into cars and headed to the front, I heard a movie star even showed up at my reception.

It was great talking to everybody again in the reception line and then a few moments later, being led into the room by the scary guy and all the past chairmen, these are all guys I’ve looked up to over these past many years and it was great being led in by them. I got a lot of great feedback on my speech, but I did want to say that if anybody was offended by the words that were used, I sincerely apologize; it could have been a little bit of nerves or a little bit of talking in front of people and I sincerely apologize. After that, we finally got to cut loose, do some dancing, and end the evening back in my room.

Thank you to everybody for spending your time with me, I really appreciate it. Here’s to a successful summer.

June 2023 - CMSA Communicator