F E AT U R E
19
T H E C L D A AT 30
WHERE WE’VE BEEN AND WHAT’S AHEAD
By Andrea Obston, Director of Public Relations, CLDA
It started in the Midwest 30 years ago.
Four men - John Storm, Dick Thomas,
Eddie Katz and Jerold Perlstein - met
to see if they could learn from each
other. All were part of what was then
called the “messenger and courier”
industry. All built their business by
getting paper from here to there. And
all shared a feeling that they could
learn from each other. They shared
the idea that they could find a way to
get those in the industry together to
break down concerns about sharing
with each other. They decided John
Storm should be their leader and with
him at the helm, they founded the
Messenger and Courier Association
in 1987.
The group’s first meeting was a small,
largely social gathering in Tampa,
Florida. Industry pioneers like Bill
Jacobs, Morley Chandler, Steve Lippe
and Steve Miley joined the found-
ers. By year two there were 40 par-
ticipants for what the group called its
Second Annual Membership Meeting
and Supplier Exhibition back in Tampa.
The association became so active that
its leaders decided that they could
grow more professionally by bring-
ing on an association management
firm. They hired Kellen Associates, a
Washington DC firm that has managed
it ever since.
Today, the industry and the associ-
ation have grown. As the industry
matured, members added services,
expanded into new verticals, entered
the last-mile space and added ware-
housing to their capabilities. In 2013,
the association changed its name
to the Customized Logistics and
Delivery Association as a response
to members’ expanded offerings.
“The name change came as part
of an overall rebranding effort to
better reflect what our members
were really doing,” recalls Rob
Johnstone, who was the asso-
ciation’s president at the time.
“For years the board had been wres-
tling with the issue of our name.
Some felt the ‘messenger’ and ‘courier’
terms no long fit. The words restricted
customers’ views of what the asso-
ciation’s members could deliver.
While the name served us well for
the first 25 years of the organiza-
tion, it did not tell the story of what
our members had grown into. We
wanted to give shippers, custom-
ers and the rest of the business
Customized Logistics and Delivery Association |
Summer 2017