The Reverse Logistics Association is yours. My role is to evangelize about the importance of focus and awareness of reverse logistics to all consumer products companies and retailers. The RLA role is to help our member companies connect, promote ways to reduce costs of reverse logistics, share best practices, and provide the highest quality content to our members through our people, our site, our events, and our publications.

The RLA is also the home of people who are passionate – about returns and reverse logistics, about the world we live in, about life, about faith, about friendship, and doing the best you can for those you know and serve, as well as delivering on what you promise, and trying to do more that you were asked to do. Gene Ridings of the RLA team was one of those people, and we lost him on August 27th, and we remember him on the next page, and in our thoughts.

I knew Gene Ridings for almost 30 years, since we both worked at Philips. In Summer of 2016, Gene rode with me on a business trip to Nashville and we spent the hours driving back and forth talking about my potentially new responsibility of Executive Director of RLA. Gene challenged me on why would I do it, and if I did take over the RLA, what could we do different. Gene pushed me to make sure we could offer more benefits to companies to join the RLA, and that we could reduce their costs to be an active member. Gene was the first Business Development Director for the renewed RLA, and he set the theme of going above and beyond to help our members overcome all objections so that the RLA would be a standard among trade associations.

Gene will be in our thoughts and memories forever. His energy and passion were unending, and reflected in his marathon running, and in the love he had for his family and friends, and for the members of the RLA that he got to know.

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Tony Sciarrotta
With much sadness and gratitude, Tony Sciarrotta tony@rla.org