The Chairman's Corner

By Jesse Chabot

November 2023

What an action-packed October! Not only is October my favorite month because obviously I love Halloween and I love scary things in general (movies, haunted houses, and scary costumes), but as I was going about my day at the beginning of this month, I had people sending me texts that the president of the CMSA just told the president of HomeSafe Alliance (HSA), the Global Household Goods (GHC) contractor, that he needed to fire their CFO. It was later verified that Steve demanded that some action greater than an apology be taken by HSA for an extremely offensive speech directed at the moving industry with whom they are attempting to partner. The first thing that came to my mind was Ronald Reagan: trust but verify. The Facebook groups are going crazy, everybody’s cheering on Steve, and I find out a couple of hours later that it is true, even hearing it later on a recording. In the past couple of articles, I talked about the fight ahead, and I think Steve really spoke about what our members were thinking, thrusting the CMSA into the fight. I’ve been saying that we need to sit at the table, and I think that Steve speaking up the way he did affirms that. Again, our president, Steve, was supposed to go up there and get inducted into the IAM Hall of Honor at a luncheon and ended up being the talk of the town.

Towards the middle of the month, we had a full board meeting in Lake Tahoe at Bally’s Lake Tahoe Casino, the site of our 2025 CMSA Convention. What a great property with beautiful rooms, beautiful views of the lake, and gambling. The meetings were great. It was good to see everybody again after a little bit of time and talk about what was on everybody’s mind…GHC and what happened at IAM in Canada. We were also able to pick the site for the 2026 CMSA Convention.

We did one chapter visit in October to the Northern Region. Griselda Gonzalez and Olga Garcia put on a great meeting with even better food. The theme was Disney Halloween; I guess Griselda and Olga are aware of my two favorite things!

As I’m writing this, we are all on a Zoom call about trip rating, under the currently released-to-public HSA rate calculator, put on by Republic Van Lines. What a great group of business-minded people we are surrounded by.  I look forward to what next month brings.

November 2023 - CMSA Communicator