ATLANTA -- At the 2013 NACS Show in Atlanta, Bob Sears, director of trade and state relations and training and compliance for Altria Group Distribution Co., has been named 2013-14 chairman of the NACS Supplier Board.
In addition, Joe Vonder Haar, managing partner of iSEE Store Innovations Inc., was named chair-elect and will succeed Sears as 2014-15 chairman.
Sears and Vonder Haar were named to their positions during the NACS Supplier Board meeting at the NACS Show in Atlanta.
Sears joined Philip Morris USA in 1996 as its director of trade marketing for national accounts. He has held a number of increasingly responsible positions for Philip Morris and Altria before being named to his current position earlier this year.
Vonder Haar is the managing partner for iSEE Store Innovations LLC. Before founding the company in 2010, he spent 28 years with Anheuser-Busch Inc., retiring as vice president of the convenience store channel.
The NACS Supplier Board is comprised of individuals from NACS supplier member companies that represent different product and service categories in the c-store industry. Three vice chairmen also were elected to the five-member Supplier Board leadership team:
- Kevin Martello, vice president of convenience, Dr Pepper Snapple Group
- Jeff Schouten, director of channel marketing, MillerCoors
- Brad McGuinness, senior vice president of corporate R&D, VeriFone Inc.
In addition, four new members were elected to the NACS Supplier Board:
- Jeff Blalock, vice president of c-store sales, Flowers Foods Snack Group
- Desiree Logsdon, vice president of marketing, Bunn-O-Matic Corp.
- Lisa Austin, vice president of sales-convenience, Oberto Brands
- Dustin Snyder, senior vice president of business development, Eby-Brown Co. LLC
Founded in 1961 as the National Association of Convenience Stores, NACS is the international association for convenience and fuel retailing. The U.S. convenience store industry, with more than 149,000 stores across the country, posted $700 billion in total sales in 2012, of which $501 billion were motor fuels sales. NACS has 2,100 retail and 1,600 supplier member companies, which do business in nearly 50 countries.
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