Today, our look back at the week’s top industry news begins with some highlights from the Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance’s annual shareholder meeting. More than 500 participants representing 52 shareholders and 120 vendor partners attended the meeting, which reviewed past and current business performance and upcoming opportunities. The meeting, one of two the Alliance conducts each year, was held Dec. 5-8 at the Boca Raton Resort & Club in Boca Raton, Fla. To view photos and find out which suppliers earned the Alliance’s coveted Annual Supplier Awards for 2010, click here.
Also within the parts distribution segment this week, we learned of the passing of Everett Kelly, former VP of Big A Auto Parts, who died Dec. 2. Kelly was 91 years old. According to his obituary, Kelly was determined to make a better life for his family after having lived through the Great Depression. He put himself through three years of college while working at B.K. Sweeney Co. in Denver, Colo., and eventually became a VP of B.K. Sweeney in 1955. He was then selected to start up a new division for B.K. Sweeney called Wonstop Auto Parts and was made president of Wonstop in 1958. In 1963, B.K. Sweeney sold Wonstop Auto Parts to Gulf and Western. Gulf and Western wanted Kelly to play a major role in the building of a national auto parts distribution company called Big A Auto Parts and named Kelly a regional vice president of the company. He later became the senior vice president, the second-highest position in the company.
In other news, R. L. Polk & Co. has moved into new corporate headquarters, roughly two miles from its former headquarters in Southfield, Mich. Polk’s new HQ is in the Travelers Tower II Building in Southfield, where it will be an anchor tenant. More than 450 Polk employees moved to the new 138,000-square-foot location. Polk occupies five floors of the building, which the company says offers several benefits, including a more collaborative work environment and easier access to major OEM customers in southeastern Michigan.
On Monday, it was announced that American Tire Distributors (ATD) will significantly expand its reach in the Pacific Northwest with its acquisition of substantially all the assets of Lisac’s of Washington Inc., and the capital stock of Tire Wholesalers Inc. Lisac’s distribution centers in Portland, Ore., and Spokane, Wash., service more than 1,400 customers in Montana, Washington, Oregon and northern Idaho. Tire Wholesalers operates one distribution center in Kent, Wash., to service more than 750 customers in western Washington. ATD said it will continue its recently announced plans to open a 126,000-square-foot distribution center in the Seattle, Wash., area in the first quarter of 2011.
Early next month, NAPA will hold its first NAPA AutoCare Collision Center Performance Group (CPG) meeting, as part of a new initiative to establish a Collision Center Performance Group, a best-of-the-best collection of 20 to 30 NAPA AutoCare Collision Center Owners from across the country. Participants for the new Collision Center Performance Group will be selected from those who attend this initial gathering, which is scheduled to take place Jan. 18-19 in Tempe, Ariz. At the proposed twice-yearly meetings, NAPA says the group will learn “best practices” from some of the most successful collision shops in America and determine strategies for meeting collision industry challenges and opportunities. The group also will create and analyze group/composite Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that show how individual participant’s businesses and the group’s average compare to industry statistics. Participation in this event is limited to the first 50 registrants, with only one collision center being represented in each regional DMA.
