Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 12

112 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 12 “So, after that, our association became sort of a help center for people in the industry. They were reaching out to us for information about rules and regulations and what was going to happen, who they should talk to, etc. We started collating and sharing resources and that became the next three months – our staff is spread across the country and everybody worked very hard from home. Many of our vendors who have been with us for years said, “Allan, we don’t know what to do about sponsorship.” And I can tell you, we put their money on hold. We stopped billing them monthly because it seemed like the right thing to do. “When the government came out with the PPP and EILP plans for financial support, we quickly got together with some others in the industry and put on a webinar, so people could sign up and get information from experts in the field. Here we are, a year and a half later and people are still telling me that the webinar saved their business. We had close to 1000 attend that webinar and I’m so thankful that we put it on early and that is was really helpful for a lot of businesses, especially the smaller independent operators around the country.” BVM: What is the association’s primary mandate? Share: “Our tagline for the association is ‘Connecting the Community Across the Globe’ and one of the charges for me is to make sure that people are always connecting because I think it makes our world a very small place. Our mission at SIA is, quite simply, to bring people together. That’s not to say we don’t do a lot of other things, but that is our core goal. “People in our industry call me “the Mayor” because over 34 years I’ve been a manufacturer, a distributor, a consultant, I’ve run the association, I’ve bought and sold several businesses within the spa industry and so I’m probably one of the most connected people in our industry. And I believe we’ve helped and