LOUISVILLE, Ky. — While attendance at this weekend’s Association for Linen Management (ALM) Annual Conference was down from previous years, Executive Director Jim Thacker called the 70th annual event that ended Sunday “the smoothest conference we’ve ever run” and reported “nothing but positive” comments from attendees about the conference’s location and educational content.
The event featured a variety of sessions aimed at laundry processors, linen distribution, clinicians, and materiel management and central services. There were also networking opportunities, as well as ALM’s annual awards banquet.
Karen Landers-Mills, sales manager at Midwest Laundry, Cincinnati, was named the 2010 Heywood Wiley Manager of the Year, the association’s most prestigious honor. She also has the distinction of having earned ALM’s other top award, the Allied Tradesperson of the Year, in 2005 while employed by distributor Cincinnati Laundry Equipment.
Wayne Adams, Medline Industries, was selected the 2010 Allied Tradesperson of the Year. Adams was not in attendance, so David Chadsey, a fellow member of the Florida Textile Management Association, accepted the award on his behalf.
ALM members elected a new board of directors effective July 1, including President Randy Wendland, CLLM, HHA Services, Elkhart, Ind.; Senior Vice President Tom Mantey, RLLD, Commonwealth Linen Services, Roanoke, Va.; Vice President Cindy Molko, RLLD, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.; Administrative Secretary Sarah James, Medical Laundry of the Tri-Cities, Bristol, Tenn.; and Chief Financial Officer Paul Jewison, Textile Care Services, Rochester, Minn.
Poor economic conditions and scheduling conflicts with family events such as graduations were blamed for the show’s modest registration, which Thacker estimated to be between 70 and 80 attendees. “We were down about a quarter of what we normally have,” he says. “It’s not anything that we didn’t expect.”
Based on the positive feedback received, the ALM board may discuss returning to Louisville in two years, Thacker says. There will also be discussions about shifting that conference’s dates to perhaps a Sunday-through-Tuesday span in an effort to boost attendance. The next ALM national meeting will be in Las Vegas in concert with the 2011 Clean Show.
American Laundry News will be featuring expanded coverage from several of this conference’s educational sessions in the near future.
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