This week, PPAI President and CEO Paul Bellantone, CAE, and Public Affairs Director Anne Stone visited the Blanchester, Ohio headquarters of The Allen Company to meet with leadership and staff, participate in its strategy discussions and learn more about how the Association can assist the supplier.

“I like to have at least one annual, if not two semi-annual offsites, with just our management team to focus on either our company culture or our strategic planning,” says Stan Dohan, MAS, president of The Allen Company. “In this case we utilized the new PPAI strategic planning book while Anne and Paul led us on a top-strengths-and-bottom-needs-for-improvement strategies session as well.”

The session brought Bellantone (above, second from right) and Stone (center) together with Dohan (center) and several of the company's staff—including CEO Allen Dohan (second left) and Preston Dohan, quality control manager (left)—staff to speak on strategic foresight in the promotional products industry—looking to the future and spotting emerging trends to help companies be in the best possible position to take advantage of them or prepare for the disruptions they may bring.

Dohan adds, “This all comes at the perfect time for us and we really appreciated the president of PPAI and the director of public affairs taking two days out of their lives, including a Sunday, to really focus on the Allen Company/Colorcraft as we enter our 60th year. It was particularly well-timed because we are adding the Thermos brand to our promotional products brand portfolio and launching a custom print bottle brand for Under Armour. For the past 13 years we started and grew Camelbak, and we will be phasing out of that in 2019 at some point.”