Association secures Stack for summit

The Missouri Association of Manufacturers is holding its 10th annual Manufacturing Summit on Sept. 18, and officials have secured SRC Holdings Corp. CEO Jack Stack as keynote speaker.

Both MAM and Stack will celebrate a 20th anniversary during the event, scheduled 10 a.m.–2 p.m. at the Oasis Convention Center. The association is 20 years old, and last month, Random House publishers released Stack’s “The Great Game of Business 20th Anniversary Edition.” The first 50 MAM members to register for the summit are slated to receive a copy of the book’s special edition, according to MissouriManufacturers.org.

MAM Executive Director Rita Needham said the purpose of the summit is to bring awareness to the work of manufacturers statewide.

Needham said manufacturing and open-book management guru Stack has never addressed MAM members as a keynote speaker, and she set aside a full hour for his speech, a half-hour more than is typical.

The event, which costs $50, includes lunch and a pre-event seminar, called Planning Strategies for Business Owners and presented by Secure Retirement Planners Inc.

In addition, she said the association plans to release the results of a study conducted by Alexandria, Va.-based American Viewpoint on right-to-work legislation, which MAM supports. The right-to-work movement calls on states to promote a worker’s right not to be required to join a union. The hotly contested issue tends to benefit employers in the labor-heavy manufacturing sector as the law chips away at workers’ bargaining power.

Needham, who announced her retirement plans earlier this year, said MAM is scrambling to name her successor at the summit. On Aug. 20, she said a handful of finalists have been identified through the search conducted by Eagle, Ind.-based job placement firm Trout Business Solutions, though she declined to name them.

“We are in the fourth quarter,” Needham said of the selection process. “I think we are getting very close.”[[In-content Ad]]