IAM President Chuck White, made what could prove to be one of his most important speeches ever at the IAM conference in Orlando.
Every year the president delivers his speech explaining what the Association has been doing in the previous twelve months and what’s on the cards for the next. But, with all that had happened in the last 18 months, this one seemed to take on a different poignancy. We have all seen challenges of late and this was one that fell squarely on Chuck’s broad shoulders. He rose to that challenge.
Chuck spoke of how he had believed, in February 2020, that the pandemic would be short lived and the conference in San Diego would go ahead as planned. That proved to be wrong. IAM last year was a purely virtual event that attracted around 800 people. It worked well but, as Chuck said himself, “It’s just not the same. People need to shake a hand or give a hug to build the bonds that have built our industry.”
So, despite the emergence of the Delta variant of COVID-19, that threatened to de-rail the plans again, his team was committed, once again, to holding a face-to-face meeting ...
Photo: IAM President Chuck White delivers his State of IAM speech.