The Electronics Representatives Association (ERA) has announced that it has added distributor and manufacturer delegates to its Executive Committee, which also includes six representative members charged with carrying out the policies of the association as directed by the board of directors.
Ken Bellero, president of Schaffner EMC Inc., has been appointed as the manufacturer delegate of the committee and Chris L. Beeson, executive vice president of sales and supplier management for Digi-Key Electronics, will step in as the distributor delegate. As members of the Executive Committee, Bellero and Beeson are also members of ERA's board of directors.
Bellero has worked in the electronics industry for more than 25 years. Prior to stepping in as the president of Schaffner, Bellero was vice president of sales for the company's components division and has held various other sales roles during his 16-year tenure at Schaffner. He also worked for Newark Electronics as a branch manager and outside sales manager for 12 years, and started his electronics career at Alpha Wire as an inside sales associate.
"As a manufacturer member of ERA for over 15 years, I am honored to be asked to serve on the board of directors and I am looking forward to being an important part of the future development of the organization," Bellero said. "I strongly believe in the rep model and view it as a viable way to build the relationships between the manufacturer, distributor and customer."
Beeson has been providing valuable business innovations as a senior executive at Digi-Key Electronics for more than 11 years and has been instrumental in creating a unique business model for the electronics industry. Prior to joining Digi-Key Electronics in 2005, he worked for more than 20 years in various roles within the electronics distribution industry.
"I am very excited and honored about the opportunity to engage with ERA as a member and in a leadership role," Beeson added. "The synergies of this relationship have never been more important for the distributor, supplier and electronics manufacturers' representative community."
ERA CEO Walter E. Tobin commented on the significance of the new delegate additions: "We are thrilled to expand ERA's Executive Committee with the addition of manufacturer and distributor delegates which will benefit all three constituents of our membership and continue to build partnerships among reps, manufacturers and distributors in the field. We look forward to the participation of Ken and Chris at the committee's first meeting during ERA's 2017 conference in Austin, Texas, this coming February."
About ERA
The 81-year-old Electronics Representatives Association (ERA) is the international trade organization for professional field sales companies in the global electronics industries, manufacturers who go to market through representative firms and global distributors. It is the mission of ERA to support the professional field sales function through programs and activities that educate, inform and advocate for manufacturers' representatives, the principals they represent and the distributors who are reps' partners in local territories. ERA member representative firms (often called "reps") provide field sales services on an exclusive basis to manufacturers of related (but non-competing) products in a defined territory. For more information about ERA, visit era.org.
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