The Promotional Products Education Foundation’s Board of Trustees has elected three incoming trustees: Matt Bertram, president of Fields Manufacturing; Carrie Laufenburg, MAS, director of key accounts at The Magnet Group; and Cindy J. Smith, company principal at Brown & Bigelow. The incoming trustees’ three-year terms begin following the PPEF board meeting at The PPAI Expo 2018.

Bertram has worked in the promotional products industry for 22 years, and he currently sits on the Premier Group Board of Directors as the Membership Committee chair. He is also the former president of the Club of Notes, an international group of adhesive-note printers.

“I feel the industry support of scholarships for college-age children of professionals in our industry is an important way to ‘give back’ and help financially support or offset the high cost of post-high school education today,” says Bertram.

Laufenburg has spent 11 years in the promotional industry, and her nonprofit experience includes representing Alpha Omicron Pi on the National Panhellenic Conference board at the University of Kentucky, and fundraising for the Arthritis Foundation.

 “PPEF is a wonderful organization that has helped and will continue to help industry families. It is our duty and privilege to help others any way we can,” says Laufenberg

Coming from a family-owned business, Smith has been involved in the promotional products industry for 30 years. She has been a volunteer at The Jeremiah Program, teaching life skills to single mothers, and participated in fundraising for local and national political campaigns, The Breck School, the University of Sewanee and Georgetown College.

Smith says, “I strongly believe in providing all children and students access to opportunities that are only available with education and advanced studies. The contributions made by individuals and companies to PPEF are impressive, and I feel the industry, as a whole, respects the mission.”