N EWS Association Management Body Meets Industry Continues to Show Strong and Stable Growth A MID A BACKDROP of strong industry growth metrics and an optimistic outlook for the long-term future of the equipment leasing and fi nance industry, the ELFA Executive Committee met in Washington, D.C., Jan. 27–28, to take stock of the association’s performance in delivering value to its members in 2014 and to review program and policy plans for 2015. ELFA ended another year in a strong financial position, which enabled the association to make a healthy contribution to its reserve account. Th is helps to ensure the future viability of the organization and enables it to continue the de-velopment of meaningful, needs-based programming to the mem-bership. Th e Executive Committee and staff continually monitor in-ternal and external factors, such as industry trends, member behavior and the broader economy, to meas-ure their impact on the association and its ability to continue to deliver value to members. Th e Executive Committee considered and made decisions on a number of critical matters. A summary of some of these issues follows: ● Th e Executive Committee was briefed by Andy Fishburn, Vice President of Federal Government Relations, and Gary Gasper of E&Y Washington Council on recent congres-sional elections and the impact on association members and their businesses. Th e group received an update and analysis of important federal tax policy matters, includ-ing the likelihood of enactment of comprehensive tax re-form. Th e association continues to monitor very closely the environment for tax reform legislation and continues to conduct analysis on various aspects of tax policy and their potential impact. ● try stakeholders and on potential activities around certain Basel III requirements dealing with the risk weighting of residuals. group received an update that indicated strong member-ship retention and recruitment data, providing evidence that the association continues to deliver on the value proposition to its members. Related to this, Board Chairman Bob Rinaldi provided a status report on a recent initiative to engage former members of the Board in a variety of ELFA programs and activities. Th e Executive Committee received a status report on the recently established Emerging Talent Program, which is de-signed to provide and enhance professional opportunities to up-and-coming leaders within member organizations. Th e Executive Committee of the ELFA Board is the as-sociation’s primary management body and consists of ELFA offi cers as well as several members of the Board. Th e overrid-ing goal of the Executive Committee and Board is to ensure the viability of the organization and its ability to develop and deliver valuable benefi ts to the association’s 580 dues-paying member companies. Th e Executive Committee meets in person three times annually to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the association and make strategic decisions regarding programming, policy and budget priorities cover-ing the near and long term. Th e ELFA Executive Committee and Board of Directors have a fi duciary responsibility to serve as stewards of the asso-ciation and its resources. It is the obligation of the association leadership to act in the best interest of its member constitu-ency, maintain the viability and stability of the organization and ensure that ELFA delivers value to its member organiza-tions. Comments or questions relating to any of these matters may be directed to ELFA Chair Bob Rinaldi and/or ELFA President and CEO Woody Sutton. ● The Foundation Chairman of the Board of Trustees Rich Gum-brecht and Foundation Executive Director Kelli Nienaber provided an update on Foundation research programs and fundraising eff orts in 2014. In addition, the Executive Committee discussed a proposal for developing a central-ized electronic repository of association-and Foundation-supported industry research and data. Board-appointed working groups made status reports on the development and use of digital documents by indus-● 4 MARCH/APRIL 2015 EQUIPMENT LEASING & FINANCE MAGAZINE ISTOCK