Earlier this month, PPAI President and CEO Paul Bellantone, CAE, joined the Upper Midwest Association of Promotional Professionals (UMAPP) for a community event, a board dinner and a roundtable breakfast discussion with members.

UMAPP’s Connect event on December 4 brought together 14 members from industry supplier and distributor companies to pack food for Feed My Starving Children, a nonprofit organization that helps provide nutritional meals for children across the globe. This was UMAPP’s fourth Connect event in 2018 and more than 100 members have participated.

The board dinner focused on the state of UMAPP, what it learned over the past year and its goals for the future. A breakfast roundtable, which brought together owners and senior management from distributors, suppliers and multi-line rep firms, featured a higher-level discussion about topics, including what is happening in the economy, employee issues, products and tariffs. Bellantone spurred on the conversation, asking attendees about the best and worst things that happened to their businesses in the past year, and how PPAI can help them.