PRESIDENTIAL PERSPECTIVE To Better Days Ahead us have had loved ones stricken ill with COVID -19, some businesses have suf- fered greatly, and there’s all kinds of un- certainty in the air. Yet, even with all of this happening, I hope still abounds. The vaccine contin- ues to roll out, and perhaps some of you have been able to get it. As more people are vaccinated and the rate of virus trans- mission is slowed, hopefully the economy will start to recover more. And hope is what we have at ALOA as well. Last year was a tough one for us. We couldn’t hold our ALOA and SAFETECH conventions, we had to downsize our staff, we had to temporarily suspend printing hard copies of our magazines, and we couldn’t hold classes at ALOA headquarters in Dallas. Our loss of revenue was severe, but with ingenuity and creativity from our board and staff, we gained some stability: We started holding webinars, increased our social media presence, added features to the digital edition of Keynotes, received Paycheck Protection Program funds and more. Some of the resulting creativity will have a lasting positive impact on ALOA for years to come. We’ve changed some things for the better and have brought WWW.ALOA.ORG know, I know... better days? From what we’ve seen so far, 2021 is having some challenges akin to last year, and the pan- demic is raging on. Many of the association further into the digital age. In particular, we hope to continue holding webinars well aſter this pandemic ends. Our members seem to love them! There’s always a silver lining in challeng- ing situations. Improvements in 2021 More improvements are still coming. Despite the challenges of the past year, ALOA member retention is actually up for this cycle. A sincere thank you to all of our members who have stuck with us and continued to support the association. We appreciate you putting your trust in us, and we will continue to do our best to meet member needs and make program improvements. ALOA and SAVTA are also moving forward with the 2021 conventions. In fact, SAFETECH registration is open now! Go take a look at the online brochure on SAVTA.org to see the classes and events we are holding this year. We are taking extra precautions to make it safe for attendees, including having sanitizing stations throughout, asking attendees to wear masks and spreading out students in classrooms. Come join us April 12-17 in Reno, NV. Look for information soon via email and in Keynotes about the ALOA Convention & Security Expo as well. Save the dates of July 25-31, and make plans to travel to Orlando. We’ll be taking the same pre- cautions there as we will at SAFETECH. And, if you aren’t a Go Green member, you’ve seen that the printed magazine is back! We’re thankful to be able to return to printed copies, but I do hope you also take advantage of the digital edition. It’s nice to see the videos of authors to hear a little bit more about them, and the links make it easy to visit any referenced web- sites or advertisers. I am sure that 2021 will continue to be fluid, just as last year was. ALOA will send you updates as needed, and we hope it will be more good news than not. I see this year as another challenge to improve this association, and I am confident that we will. So here’s to better days ahead — for ALOA and for all of you. Jim Wiedman, CML President ALOA Security Professionals Association, Inc. [email protected] FEBRUARY 2021 KEYNOTES 5
