Fostering Connection and Growth: Highlights from the AFLA Annual Conference (Elizabeth Schlicht)

In this Mile Marker podcast episode, we chat with Elizabeth Schlicht, Executive Director of the Automotive Fleet & Leasing Association (AFLA). They reflect on AFLA’s recent conference, emphasizing its unique sense of community. With a record number of 200 new attendees, the event highlighted key themes like trust, collaboration, and technological advancements. Schlicht discusses AFLA’s initiatives, including Fleet 101, a new modular learning program for fleet professionals. The conversation underscores AFLA’s commitment to fostering industry relationships and supporting career growth, with Schlicht describing the organization as a vibrant, welcoming space where professionals form lasting bonds.

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Transcript

Fostering Connection and Growth: Highlights from the AFLA Annual Conference

In this Mile Marker podcast episode, we chat with Elizabeth Schlicht, Executive Director of the Automotive Fleet & Leasing Association (AFLA). They reflect on AFLA’s recent conference, emphasizing its unique sense of community. With a record number of 200 new attendees, the event highlighted key themes like trust, collaboration, and technological advancements. Schlicht discusses AFLA’s initiatives, including Fleet 101, a new modular learning program for fleet professionals. The conversation underscores AFLA’s commitment to fostering industry relationships and supporting career growth, with Schlicht describing the organization as a vibrant, welcoming space where professionals form lasting bonds.

Angela Simoes: Welcome everyone to the Mile Marker podcast. I'm Angela Simone, your host, and we are here today with Elizabeth Schlitt as Executive Director of ala. Welcome, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Schlicht: Hi, wonderful to be here. Thanks for having a conversation today.

Angela Simoes:  No, of course. So we are here at AFLA where that's the last day here in San Antonio. It's been three action packed days and wow, what a unique, how do I want to say such a unique environment of professionals because everyone is, as you said earlier, best friends.

I mean, I've never been to a conference in my 25 plus years of being in the tech world where everyone really looks forward to seeing each other. There's really strong relationships. I mean, this is such a unique environment. So talk a little bit about the conference and how it's been going, and then this dynamic that we have here with fleet professionals. It's really amazing.

Elizabeth Schlicht: Yeah, it is such a special industry, but also I think the ALA family is uniquely warm and inviting, and that's part of what really makes this conference have the heart that it does because you can get content, you can get education in so many different formats, but it's the humans that really bring that to life. It is having those serendipitous moments kind of everywhere that pop up throughout the entire event, running into people in the hallway, even the Q and a sessions during the different times during the sessions end up turning into big conversations that go on into the late hours in the lobby talking with everyone. One of our first time attendees this year made a post on LinkedIn saying that genuinely surprised because it really felt like this was where the heart of the industry is, that this is the humanity of it. And I loved that quote. It's really stuck with Yeah,

Angela Simoes: That's going on your marketing materials as soon as they approve it.

Elizabeth Schlicht: Yes, absolutely. But it's so true, and I've been with AFLA, this was my 11th conference with ala, and honestly the relationships are just phenomenal. You see these people, I get the opportunity to engage with many of them throughout the year,

But then year over year and you just get to see everyone's careers progress and the networks and all of the different connections that are being made. And that's really what makes this industry so rich. And I think what makes Alas so uniquely rich is that everyone is equal at the table, always has been in our history, and you can really see that because you sit at a table and everyone has equal insights to give and everyone is equally appreciated for what they're bringing to that table. And that's really going to bring, I think, that humanity side of it and really infuse it in everything because everyone feels so welcomed. It's not just one group of people feeling that welcome.

Angela Simoes: Right. Well, so as you know, we recorded a number of episodes here at afla and literally every single one I love, this is the best community. I love Fleet, I fell into fleet, but I'm here for life. I mean, it's just unlike anything else I've ever experienced, which is just so amazing in a way you never equate, oh, working in a technology field as almost an extension of your personal relationships, your personal circle. Right. And from what I understand, so many of the folks here, their best friends are other fleet professionals and they meet up at ala. I mean, it's been amazing. It's so crazy.

Elizabeth Schlicht: And throughout the year or too, so it's like, oh, I'm in this city for a family vacation and hey, let's meet up. Oh my gosh, it's so crazy. And really people do, once they join the industry, they stay. Theresa belting, current Ale Treasurer and New Hall of Fame Inductee as of this week, said it very nicely in her speech on stage the other night, fleet is a life sentence, but no one's really too upset about it when you say it with heart and smile, you can just tell you fall into the industry and then you stay because it's

Angela Simoes: Amazing. Yeah. And so you had 200 new attendees. Is that kind of a record? You usually get that many new attendees?

Elizabeth Schlicht: I'd say the last few years we've had close to around that number. Really. I do think there's been a lot of shake-up in the industry.

You can see it. There's a lot of new players. There's a lot of new people falling into fleet. There's a little bit of succession planning. You can see in a couple different companies that are coming to fruition. And they're really actively, again, that humanity side. We're going to pull the people up behind us and help connect them to the networks we've spent our careers building to help them be successful because you care about, yes, the fleets, the drivers, everything about it, but you care about the people in the industry and you want to see everyone continue to be successful. So I think that all contributes to it a bit. But yeah, just shy of 200 brand new attendees this year and it was exciting. It seemed like they were really enjoying themselves.

Angela Simoes: And were they mostly younger people or are these people that are maybe have been in fleet for a while but had never attended ALA before? Because I did run into a couple of those folks as well who maybe they were focused on a different part of the fleet world and so yeah, maybe have been in the industry for about 10 years, but this is their first ala. So was it kind of a mix? And then what do you think kind of drove or drives every year since you said every year you get a large number of new attendees. What's driving that new attendance?

Elizabeth Schlicht: I think it's definitely a mix. Many people say I didn't start off in Fleet.

Angela Simoes: I don't think anybody started off in Fleet.

Elizabeth Schlicht: I think I heard of two people that I've come across that have started off in Fleet, but they might've been maybe in the automotive sector and transitioned to a new role and now they have this or they just got fleet added to their plate and their brand new fleet manager and they're looking for those resources. And I think there's a lot of things. One of the things that I love about ALA is because people are so passionate about being here, it's our members, our attendees that are doing so much of that outreach. We find the value here. We want you to have that value, come join us. And people who are joining, some of the companies who've been involved with afla for decades, but they might be a new hire so that we do have some of those younger people who are newer to the space. I've been in Fleet you'll hear for one or two years, or I didn't know what I was doing last year and now I feel like maybe I can spend a little bit of time trying to figure out what I'm doing. So then you start to see them at some of these

Angela Simoes: Events. And so let's talk a little bit about the sessions that you had over the course of the three days. So what was covered and then were there some that were a little more popular than others as far as driving really good conversation, here's where the future is going, that sort of thing.

Elizabeth Schlicht: Well, it's interesting you keyed us up with that topic. I do think one of the sessions that I heard from a lot people really enjoyed and got a lot of value from was our futurist that we had as one of our keynotes

Angela Simoes: Second day on opening day, the second day.

Elizabeth Schlicht: The second day. We had some great sessions on the first day too. I'll make sure I come back to those.

Angela Simoes: Yeah, workplace harmony has resonated quite well with everyone.

Elizabeth Schlicht: There are some really some big themes I'd say that have really tied and tied together the conference. And I think that almost happened. It's not that it wasn't intentional to some extent, but not to the level that we saw trust, thinking about the future, what are the trends, what do we need to look for? And then those trends themselves that are being identified keep popping up and the different sessions on this is how you handle this. Change is a big piece of it. We talked about that with the AI session. We talked about it obviously with the futurist, exponential changes happening. We had an industry update panel today with a lot of our board members closing out the conference today and talking about things are changing. And one of those things you've got to build trust. Because

To navigate change, you have to be able to trust your team. You have to be able to trust the people you work with. You have to be able to trust your vendors. And the word that came up a lot or Gilchrist was saying it earlier today on the panel, the ecosystem that we're in, because there's a lot of people involved in ultimately driving the organizations that we all work for here in ALA Forward and bringing drivers home safe every day, there's a lot of people in that ecosystem. You have to be able to trust them, you have to be able to communicate with them. You have to be looking toward the future and navigating and planning with them. And those themes just really kept coming up throughout the week. And it's kind of the partnership in many ways of technology advancements and where we're going with that and needing to be open to it, play around with it, get familiar with it because it's not going away. It's just going to continue getting bigger and better. Exponential change, but you have to get the human buy-in. So you've got to have that technology and the human piece of it and they have to come together and the people in the room are that linchpin point between those two.

Angela Simoes: I will say in all of our conversations on the podcast, trust and collaboration are probably the two words that came up the most, both in terms of running an efficient fleet and being successful, but then also why this conference and the fleet industry is so connected and so tight and it's such a unique environment. So it's interesting that it keeps coming up, this whole trust and collaboration you think, I mean there's collaboration in other industries as well, but man, I mean it's like another level here.

Elizabeth Schlicht: It really is. I think part of it is the industry itself because there's no one, you can't do this by yourself even if you are a department of one, a team of one, and there are some of people here that are, you then have vendors, you have partners, you have other stakeholders. So you can't make an impact by yourself. So how do you find those tools and then build that collaborative team.

Angela Simoes: The other thing that I thought was interesting about the agenda for the three days is that there was just as much time dedicated to pure networking and then also giving back to the community as there was for actual sessions. So I know that ALA has partnered with the Hourglass Foundation. Can you talk a little bit about that experience? And I know we also had a section where people could go help at a food bank. So talk about the whole community aspect of it and the foundation and the work that you're doing there.

Elizabeth Schlicht: Absolutely. So ALA has, since 2015, we've had a charity of the year that we've identified and really encouraged the ALA attendees, our membership and the industry beyond a walls, so to speak,

To really support the work that they're doing. We always look for a charity that has a tie to the fleet industry, either very specific through their mission or they might, maybe they have a fleet attached to it or they are able to accept vehicle donations. There's some sort of tie into it. And the Hourglass Foundation kind of ticks all of those to be honest with you. So all of those criteria, we were able to partner with them a few years ago, which was fantastic. And then every couple of years we go through a reevaluation process and we were able to bring 'em back again this year as the charity of the year. And I'm not quite sure, but we might have almost or might have surpassed, we'll have to see if the last plugin we did at the end did its job tipped you. Yeah, tipped us over the edge of their fundraising goal, reaching and obtaining that they're raising money to support scholarships that they give to those attending.

We focus mostly on the automotive maintenance and repair side of things, people who are looking to be able to go into that for a career. And it's a strong need that we have in the industry because no matter how great your technology is, and no matter how safe you are, there are still things that need to be repaired. There's maintenance that needs to be done, and we need people to be able to do that. And there's a shortage and that shortage is only going to grow and the work that they're doing is really helping to stem that problem from the get go. So that way we don't see as strong of an impact in that for years and decades to come in the industry. They had a wonderful video. It'll be on our website, fl.org, just look for the charity of the year page highlighting a profile of someone that was able to be impacted by their program. And it was, I highly encourage everyone to go seek it out and watch it. I won't be able to do it justice, but it was just really telling how much of an impact this has.

Angela Simoes: Was this the video that was shown at the award ceremony?

Elizabeth Schlicht: Yes.

Angela Simoes: So it was the young woman. Yeah, it was a great story. It's one of those unexpected, oh, I never expected someone like her to want to go into this field and here she is being so successful. It was really nice to see.

Elizabeth Schlicht: Well, and I love that too. Part of ALA is our Women in fleet management program, so really supporting women in the industry and that takes all of us. It's not just women supporting women, it's the entire industry supporting women, and we need repair as well. That's part of our industry. So I loved being able to highlight someone that you wouldn't necessarily traditionally think.

Angela Simoes: Right, exactly.

Elizabeth Schlicht: And just the work that the Hourglass Foundation is doing to really address this problem. It's

Angela Simoes: Fantastic. So you've been talking to people for three days, I'm sure you've had tons of feedback from everyone. Both good. And maybe some suggestions. So going into the conference, did you have some hopes as far as I want everyone to take away these two or three things from this conference? And do you feel that that happened and then did that change based on your interactions with people like now I hope maybe they got this as well, or for our next event we're going to really focus in this area kind of thing. So kind of those multilevel question there, but I guess what are you hoping people took away and what are your thoughts on future events?

Elizabeth Schlicht: Yeah, so it's always really interesting because everyone's going to come into the conference with a few things that they're looking to get out of it. And you can ask three or four people and you're going to get seven or eight different responses. But my biggest goal is that you have anyone who is here with us this week found two or three new pieces of information. Maybe it's a question to ask or a way to reframe a problem that they've been looking to solve that helps 'em find a new insight and at least three or four people that they can now reach out to as a new resource because it's the human, again, we're coming back to the human piece of it. It's those human connections, which are in some ways almost more impactful than that one piece of knowledge. And not to say that the knowledge wasn't fantastic. We had some amazing panelists, amazing speakers, but the year over year growth of knowledge at your fingertips, it's when you add to your network at AFLA and other events is just, it's exponential, like the pace of change that we were talking about.

Angela Simoes: And so talk a little bit about how A works throughout the year, different events, other types of educational resources that you provide. I'm sure that a lot of people listening to this podcast are familiar with afla, but maybe they don't know all of the things that you do. So how do you extend this great content that you've had this week throughout the rest of the year?

Elizabeth Schlicht: So there's actually some new things. So I'm happy to be able to highlight this of course, and some that are kind of a little bit newer that people might not be as aware of. So for those who have Canadian fleets or Canadian responsibilities, we have a Canadian summit in February, February 19th and 20th.

Angela Simoes: Great.

Elizabeth Schlicht: So we're looking forward to that. We're generating the program for that right now. We'll have some more announcements on those sessions coming up soon. Now that we're kind of past this week's event, we also, and this was brand new, announced on Monday this week while we were here, have a new approach to education. Heidi DeAngelo is our education chair, and she's been working with our task force for the last year. This ties to our strategic plan. We've done some education year round for ALA members for well over a decade, but we needed to update it. You can't do the same thing over and over and expect different results and expect it to still fit the needs of an industry that's changing as rapidly as the fleet industry is. So we've all gotten busier. It is so much harder to schedule things with people and a recognition of that. No one's setting aside an hour to sit on a webinar,

Angela Simoes: Right? No,

Elizabeth Schlicht: I am horrible for it. I'll sign up for something and give me 15 minutes and then something pops up on a screen,

Angela Simoes: Just say, or you have it up on a screen and then you go do something else and you're multitasking. And then before you know it, you've missed the whole thing.

Elizabeth Schlicht: Right. So how long give you give it what, 10, maybe 15 minutes?

Angela Simoes: Yeah, maybe.

Elizabeth Schlicht: Yeah. Alright. So uniquely to that timeframe is kind of those little bites of time that you have throughout the day and little snack times, right? Each module. And we launched Fleet 1 0 1. Again, for those people who are brand new to Fleet, what do you need to know?

I mean, it's also bit soup if you don't know what these acronyms are. And so that's one of the resources that's there. But it's one module and it's built out of, I think it's 10 or 11 different bytes of content that you can go through and gives you a good idea. It might not answer every single question, but it's really meant to be more of a, here's a map of this industry that you're now finding yourself in. And here are some great links. Here are some great people. Most of our speaking to how much we're big on networking here. Most of our authors and content providers for this module are like, Hey, here's my LinkedIn profile. Put this on the page. They can reach out to me if they have any questions. And looking for partnership with other associations that are really uniquely focused on one area. And nuts is one of the listed resources and they've got a lot of free content out there, but if you're brand new, you don't know where to go. So we want to give that start here and then we'll expand from it. So it's a new approach to learning and we're launching it with Fleet 1 0 1 because the way we launch is this is what we all wish we had

Angela Simoes: When you started,

Elizabeth Schlicht:

When you

Angela Simoes:

Fell into it, 90 days

Elizabeth Schlicht: Into, I fell into my life sentence of fleet and here's what I need to know to get started.

Angela Simoes: Very cool. Very cool. Congratulations on those initiatives. It sounds like they'll be quite successful.

Elizabeth Schlicht: I'm looking forward to it. And there'll be more to come with Fleet 1 0 1 and more modules into the future. So we're excited to see where this grows and to get the feedback from the early adopters and first people to go through the module.

Angela Simoes: That's great. Well, that's all I have for today. I would just say congratulations again. This is, again, such a unique environment, a wonderful environment, and congratulations to you and all your team for putting on such a wonderful conference. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people. I love ala. I love ala it's here. Let me just say, how many industries do you know where there are retirees that still come to conferences just because that just doesn't happen.

Elizabeth Schlicht: It does not happen.

Angela Simoes: No, it just doesn't happen. It's so amazing. And so I think that's definitely, it could be organically just the nature of the industry, but I also think it's what you've built here with affluent in the conference. So it's kudos to you guys.

Elizabeth Schlicht: Thank you. And I do appreciate you mentioning it is a team effort because I'm one person here and I have the opportunity to talk with you, but I have some great staff members on our staff

Angela Simoes: Team. Yeah, Jennifer has been very helpful with our effort.

Elizabeth Schlicht: Yeah, it's great. Well, and we've got Edith and Alyssa and on the team as well, but it's also our volunteers throughout the year. So AFLA members all are welcome and encouraged to get involved on those task forces. And they really help plan events like this week's event, what topics we're going to have next year at Marco Island. We're all looking forward to Marco Island, but also the education, task force communications, all the different things that we do throughout the year. And so it's again, another way to make those connection pieces throughout the year, but while also having a positive impact on the industry. So it's very much a team effort.

Angela Simoes: That's great. Well, congratulations again, and hopefully we'll see you. We'll be able to do this next year at Marco Island. That sounds amazing. Thank you so much for being here with us this year.