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JANUARY 2016 •
PPB
• 23
IN THE MIDST OF
CHANGES that might shake
any other industry to its core,
Steve Slagle, CAE, kept PPAI
and its promotional products
business members on a
steady course toward contin-
uing growth and success.
Slagle, who
served as the
Association’s
president and
CEO from
1996 to 2012,
is being hon-
ored as the
2016 PPAI
Hall of Fame
inductee.
He helped
lead the
Association
through
major changes as it worked
to move the industry forward
against a tide of changing
buyer habits and the explo-
sive growth of technology,
including the internet boom.
His calm, somewhat reserved
demeanor belies his passion
for promotional products
businesses and the associa-
tion that serves them.
Slagle graduated from
the University of Tennessee
with a journalism degree that
focused on advertising and
marketing. After graduation
he served two
years in the
U.S. Marine
Corps, after
which he
entered
graduate
school, again
at UT. His first
job in associa-
tion manage-
ment came in
1977 when he
joined the
National
Association for Campus
Activities in Columbia, South
Carolina.
“For five years I was the
director of communications
and I edited a magazine, and
I later left to work for an
advertising agency. I was
invited back to NACA where
I was hired as executive
director, a position I held for
13 years. I really enjoyed
those years and I decided
association management was
my career choice.”
When the opportunity to
work with PPAI came along in
late 1995, Slagle says, “I really
felt like I was in the right
place. I wanted to work with
an association that represented
small-business owners,
entrepreneurs, and marketing
professionals, and PPAI was
the perfect match. I left an
association that was much
smaller, but I quickly learned
it’s all relative. My first
impressions about PPAI and
the industry came just two
weeks after I was hired when
I attended the PPAI Winter
Show, as the Expo was then
called, in Dallas. I was incred-
ibly impressed with the array
and diversity of products
being exhibited,” Slagle
recalls. “I was really struck by
the size and scope of the
show, and with the people
I’d met. I remember being
interviewed by the search
committee and having the
feeling PPAI was on the
verge of significant change
… the industry was begin-
ning to be challenged by
technological changes. As
the internet allowed buyers
to have access to more infor-
mation in the mid- to late
’90s, the best-kept secrets
about the industry were
being exposed.”
Slagle adds that competi-
tion became more challeng-
ing to PPAI in the late ’90s
and early 2000s, especially in
the trade show arena and in
membership services.
“Everyone was compet-
ing for dollars in the market-
place. But we became better
because of it. We changed as
the industry changed,” he
recalls.
With an eye on the future
and a passion for making the
present profitable for mem-
bers and the Association,
The Only
Constant Is Change
PPAI honors Steve Slagle as its 2016 PPAI Hall of Fame inductee
BY JEN ALEXANDER
Steve Slagle, CAE