President's Message
November 2009
Hello all.
Hope you’re all doing well.
First, let me say thanks to Jim Taylor and Beth Williams from Auto Data Direct and Alan Monello, Larry Peters, and Steve Jordon from the Florida Independent Auto Dealers Association for their help in arranging the May conference in Tallahassee, Florida. This support from our corporate sponsors and members is what enables us to move around the state and reach all our membership. Job well done and thank you all again for your help.
As you all know, our next meeting is going to be held in Fort Myers, Florida on January 15, 2009. We hope to see a large turnout for this meeting as it will include our awards presentation as well as a clone car and title fraud presentation designed by the National White Collar Crime Center for the US Department of Justice.
As for legislative news, we hope to have a bill number for the Motor Vehicle and Cargo Theft Prevention Authority (MVCTPA) in the next couple weeks. Once this bill is submitted then it will be time to rally support from all law enforcement agencies, investigators associations, and companies in the private sector that have an interest in reducing auto theft, cargo theft and other motor vehicle related crimes. As soon as we know more on this important matter we will send out an update to all our members.
I would like to thank Rusty Russell for his many years of service to FATIU. For those of you who have not heard, Rusty has retired from the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office and has taken a job with the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). Rusty will be working as Director of Vehicle Investigations out of NICB Headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. Rusty, thanks for all your time and dedication to FATIU. I assure you it did not go unnoticed.
With Rusty moving on to NICB, that has created a vacancy on the Board of Directors. After intake from the other board members, I have decided to appoint Joe Castro to complete the remainder of the term which is approximately 14 months. For those of you who do not know Joe, he is retired from the Hialeah Police Department where he spent many years working auto theft, with several of those years being attached to the Miami-Dade Auto Theft Task Force. He then worked for NICB and is now back in law enforcement working with the Miami Gardens Police Department. Welcome Joe and we look forward to seeing you at the January board meeting.
Lastly, I would like to ask for everyone’s help in recruiting new members and corporate sponsors. At the last FATIU meeting we created a small financial incentive to get our current members to help find new members. If you are a current member you can receive $5.00 off your annual membership for each new member (up to 4 new members) you get to join FATIU. It’s not a lot but if you get several new members it not only would pay for your membership but would help FATIU expand our reach and get new members at our training sessions.
Thanks everyone and hope to see you all in Fort Myers.