21. NORTH CAROLINA VENDING ASSOCIATION

As a long-time supporter and member of the North Carolina Vending Association, [NCVA] I was named to the board of directors in 1976. The following year, I was named treasurer and continued up the ladder to the presidency in 1981. This required a lot of my time, but I always felt it was worth it to further the interests of the entire industry. We had many goals to accomplish and it would take major input from everyone to attain these goals. They ran from tax relief to the elimination of the dollar bill and replacing it with a dollar coin. We were successful in getting the coin, but could not get rid of the paper dollar. Had we been successful in this venture, it would have saved the industry untold thousands of dollars by allowing the elimination of the dollar changers since all the vending machines would change the dollar coin. It also would have saved an untold amount of capital since it would remove the necessity of investing thousands of dollars to stock the changers. We always felt it to be a worthy goal even though it did not materialize.

In 1982, I was named chairman for the three-state convention, which was in itself a real honor. This, too, required a lot of my time holding meetings in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The upside of that was that Barbara and I got a free trip to Bermuda that year and because of this position and other positions, over the years we had the good fortune to visit Jamaica and several other island resorts.

The NCVA, VAMA [Virginia Automatic Merchandising Association] and the three-state convention was run and supervised by Barbara Short, president of Info Marketing. She organized the trips, set up the meetings, set the agenda and made it very easy for those of us in the hierarchy of the association to function like we knew what we were doing. It was a great arrangement and I will always be grateful to Barbara as well as her able assistant, Stevie Hughes. They are both great individuals and true friends. [Barbara is now retired and Stevie owns the company.]

Although South Carolina was a full partner with regards to being part of the three-state convention, they had a separate company to facilitate their other activities. I correspond via e-Mail with Barbara Short daily and she has remained a true friend.