On August 5th- 7th, URG held their premier Annual Conference in Dallas, Texas. It was a solid, packed training conference with over 50 classes being taught by industry experts. At the House of Blues, Friday night’s portion, URG kicked off their scholarship foundation auction which was sponsored by CCC Intelligent Solutions and eBay Motors. Larry and the team at Supershear donated a Supershear along with two FREE blades, like Larry does every year. Speaking of a repeat, Car-part.com, as always, sent a nice Kentucky Bourbon with all the accessories. A big, beautiful Yeti was donated by Fenix Parts and Jancey Consulting donated 10 hours of training. Hollander also participated with a nice, Yeti Roadie 24 Hard Cooler. The donation list is too long to list all the wonderful people who offered a donation. However, I wanted to thank those of you who bided and for those that won your bid, God Bless all of you for your generosity. This was the first fund raiser since 2019 and URG Scholarship Foundation covered all the commitments that they had which was $40k to young kids.
Some of you may not know, but I’ve got to tell you the fast version of this story. I wore a black felt cowboy hat for maybe 20 minutes doing a URG commercial in which I promoted the URG conference. It’s typical of Georgie Strait to wear this hat when he sings. While we were shooting the commercial spot, the TV camera never caught the tag. So, I donated the hat to the Auction. The executive director of ARA, Sandy Blalock contributed $2500 for the Scholarship Fund to get the hat, and she in turn gave it away to Bill Tolpa’s son. Bill Tolpa of Tolpa Auto Parts had to take over as auctioneer when Bo Wroten got sick. Ryan Falco from Midway Auto Parts was the best Assistant Auctioneer that I have ever seen. To all participants, bidders and donors THANK YOU! A special thanks goes to Ryan, Bill and Sandy who contributed a lot more that night. In case you didn’t know, Sandy Blalock is one of the most generous people in our industry.
While I am writing this, please mark your calendar for November 10th – 13th for the 78th Annual ARA Convention and Expo to be held in Dallas, Texas. It shouldn’t be missed. With a reduction in temperature and change of season, November should be a wonderful time to visit Dallas. So, make it a point to be there for the ARA Annual Convention & Expo.
The URG Scholarship Foundation was created by Recyclers for Recyclers. URG remains focused in the areas of education, business acumen, and most importantly, supporting automotive recyclers and their families to ensure growth and success of this great industry. And for that reason, I am proud to be a small part of URG. There’s more.
We are proud to announce that URG gave $40,000 to our children and sometimes for one of our employees will get a chance to go back to school. $30,000 has been set aside for students that will attend college and universities while $10,000 will go to those students attending trade and vocational schools. Applications will be available next January for the Fall semester. Remember, owners, their relatives, and those owning over $100,000 worth of stock in the employing yard are not eligible to receive these funds. When was the last time that you mentioned “scholarships” in your employee package when trying to get a new employee on board? If you haven’t been mentioning it, then start now. It’s our desire for the money to go to the most deserving individuals. So, every year, we look for the right people to complete an application. Two years ago, I was calling yards to remind them of the deadline.
The URG conference was superb, informative, and educational. But I’m not the only person saying that because we have recyclers on video saying this was money well-spent coming to hear the experts in our industry. The generosity of so many caring people was overwhelming. To everyone who gave $5 or $20 to the 50/50 was greatly appreciated because almost $6,000 was collected during the three day conference which helped the Scholarship Fund even more. Good job, Recyclers!
My sincere thanks to all of you and URG for your self-less generosity to others. It’s evident that recyclers want to bless others because of their success. It’s my prayer that God will give me a few more years to see whom you’ll help at future URG Conferences. Don’t forget that next year’s conference is scheduled for April 7th – 9th in New Orleans, and God willing, I’ll be there too. I love every one of you and wish you a strong finish in 2021.
See you next time.
Correspondence regarding this article should go to:
D.J. Says, 2820 Andover Way, Woodstock, GA 30189
D. J. Harrington is an author, journalist, seminar leader, international trainer, and marketing consultant. He works primarily with customer service personnel, and his clients include such world-class companies as General Motors, DuPont, Caterpillar, and Damon Corporation. He may be reached at 800-352-5252. E-mail: dj@djsays.com. 52 weeks a year, we are as close as your telephone.