Renewing focus, continuing legacy

Enthusiasm rang high during Sunday morning’s Business Program as both NACDS chairman Bob Narveson and NACDS president and CEO Steve Anderson welcomed attendees to the first NACDS Total 
Store Expo.

“What a great honor it is to be the first chairman to say these words: ‘Welcome to the NACDS Total Store Expo,’” said Narveson, who also is president and CEO of Thrifty 
White Pharmacy.

With more than 1,300 retailers gathered together under the NACDS banner — a first for the association — and demographics that include, but are not limited to, more than 475 president and CEOs, 225 COOs and EVPs, 1,300 SVPs and VPs, and 2,600 managers and buyers, Narveson applauded the industry for seizing the opportunity.

Narveson also urged members to remember that NACDS events are designed to build on each other and to seize other such opportunities as NACDS RxIMPACT Day on Capitol Hill, which is now open for registration. The sixth annual 2014 RxIMPACT Day will be held 
March 12 and 13, 2014.

Following Narveson’s remarks, Anderson noted that NACDS is celebrating its 80th anniversary in 2013, and likened the energy and determination of NACDS to its earliest days, when George Gales, the first volunteer president of NACDS, offered the organization’s first slogan: “This organization has no past.”

“George Gales did not just state the obvious. He stated the opportunity, with great clarity. … Today, this group has the advantage of eight decades of experience. Yet it runs on the same verve and vision of the association’s first days,” Anderson told attendees.

“Well, today this organization has a past — I prefer to call it a legacy,” Anderson said. “And whether you have been engaged with NACDS for decades or for days, you are part of it.”