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Owner David Brown accepting the Legislative Resolution from Assemblyman John McDonald
Albany, N.Y. — Late last month, Premiere Transportation celebrated its 25th anniversary with a giant party at its headquarters. According to an article in the local newspaper, the Troy Record, the company began as Carey of Albany in 1990, but following a series of acquisitions, it became one of the largest chauffeur-driven transportation services in the area.
Food, drink, and music was provided and well over a hundred guests attended the party. Among the most notable guests were Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan and Assemblyman John McDonald, the latter of whom presented Premiere Transportation with a Legislative Resolution. David Brown, Premiere’s president, gave a speech that detailed his beginnings at the company as a 24-year-old car washer and detailer, who then took over the company a year later. Brown also thanked his vice president and four of his longest-working drivers for 25 years of service.
Premiere also announced it would be rolling out its own mobile app, similar to Uber, that would allow clients to register an account, book online, see a photo of their driver, and track their vehicle’s location in real time.
Visit premierelimo.com for more information.
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L to R: NELA 2nd Vice President Tina Benson of L.A. Limousine Service, NELA Director Lynda Saitta of Momentum Drive, and NELA President Mike Callahan of Able Limousine were among the board members helping out at the annual event.
Boston — New England Livery Association (NELA) hosted its 15th annual Chauffeur Appreciation Day June 25 at Logan International Airport’s limo pool, where members representing the board and the association in general helped serve nearly 1,000 lunches to the hungry chauffeurs making runs to and from the airport all day. The yearly event’s Gold Sponsors included Allied Technologies and Dav El/BostonCoach, and a number of Silver and Bronze Sponsors contributed to the event’s success, too.
NELA CEO Rick Szilagyi said the daylong event is a chance to give back to the chauffeurs at the frontline of members’ companies. NELA’s 2nd Vice President Tina Benson of L.A. Limousine Service, as well as her industry-supporting siblings Cindy and Carl, “were all huge contributors of manpower”—Benson’s father, in fact, used to take on much of the day’s responsibilities in years past.
“Tina’s father used to work a canteen truck at fairs, so they would bring that truck to Chauffeur Appreciation Day,” Szilagyi said. “Now, she builds this wooden frame that serves as our storefront. Behind that, we have the two big grills that we just keep working all day.”
In addition to serving up nearly 1,000 meals, Chauffeur Appreciation Day also had raffles going on throughout the event.
Much of the NELA board and a handful of the association’s members were jockeying to run the grills and serve up hot sausage, sweet sausage, hamburgers, and hot dogs to chauffeurs who traveled from as far away as Portland, Maine, to pick up and drop-off travelers hailing from all over New England.
As an extra thank-you to the chauffeurs who were able to stop by, raffles went on throughout the day. Sullivan Tire & Auto Repair donated more than 20 certificates for free oil changes, and Sunoco donated a pass to a NASCAR event. Everyone who bought a raffle ticket also received a T-shirt.
NELA’s next event is its annual George Colarullo Memorial Golf Tournament, which will be held August 18 at the Marlborough Country Club in Massachusetts and raise money for both CHIP’s House and One Mission this year.
Visit nelivery.org for more information.
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MLOA Executive Director Dr. Yvonne LaMar
The Minority Limousine Operators of America (MLOA) has been busy these past few months, as it continues to offer training sessions to those seeking Small Business Administration (SBA) certification while also gearing up for its last in-person meeting of the year.
According to MLOA’s Executive Director Dr. Yvonne LaMar of LimousineQA.com, the association continues to see interest in both its social media marketing seminars and the call-in certification training sessions that she’s been running throughout the year for MLOA members. The current SBA certification program is in its second of three weeks and is taking seven members through the process—an intimate number that LaMar says is ideal for the “very time-consuming” scope of work and gathering of documents that precedes submitting a completed application.
“The goal is, that at the end of these sessions, we’ve reviewed the entire application and each member will be able to submit theirs with some confidence,” LaMar said.
While some members have previously submitted their applications, LaMar has not yet received feedback regarding their success achieving certification—though she isn’t surprised, seeing as “it takes about eight weeks for everything to turn around.” Along with “trying to fit one more certification session in before the Chauffeur Driven Show” and planning more social media marketing calls, LaMar is also working on a survey to find out what other programming association members want.
“The survey is to see if there are other things that members are interested in that just haven’t come up yet,” she said. “Instead of us presenting them with topics, it gives them a chance to tell us what they’d like to do, too. We have experts in the industry who are very willing to help us, and an advisory board and a board of directors who are very knowledgeable and can certainly provide a lot of training, too.”
MLOA is currently expanding its advisory board, which presently includes industry vendors such as Arthur Messina of Create-A-Card and Jeff Brodsly of Chosen Payments.
“We’re trying to reach across the industry to people who have different specialties, whether it’s insurance or sales or credit card processing,” LaMar said. “Right now, we have people like Art Messina and Jeff Brodsly, who are really just active and helpful people in general. It’s great having advisors on different aspects of the business because our members are mostly owners/operators, and it’s helpful to have vendors’ marketing knowledge or their financial knowledge.”
With a membership base stretching across the country, MLOA’s bimonthly meetings are typically conference calls, though its October 13 meeting will be held at the Chauffeur Driven Show in Miami Beach. LaMar said that the association is planning to have a guest speaker at the meeting “representing very large companies who have procurement offices and who will talk to our members about getting access to large contracts.”
MLOA’s next membership conference call is July 22.
Visit
mlooa.org for more information.
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