Dear fellow Iowa Chapter of ALOA members,

First of all, thank you all for your support during the past year and I hope that this letter finds everyone well and good.

Your board has worked very hard this year to provide quality classes during 2015, including a two day safe penetration party with Dave McOmie, a class on CX-5 High Security Locks, and the two day Tips, Tricks, and Transponders class with Jim Hetchler and High Security Automotive with Jason Frank. All of these classes were a great success, offering quality education to each and every locksmith that attended, provided by outstanding teachers. Thanks to all that attended. It was great seeing many of you.

We must also thank Midwest Keyless for providing Mr. Li’s Lishi tools, Strattec for providing locks for the automotive sessions, and Doyle for providing give-a-ways and door prizes for everyone. We cannot do these classes without these folks, and we appreciate their generosity, so please buy from them when you can.

We are very proud of the quality of our educational classes, and are striving to continuously get better every year. It is humbling to see members from other associations come and take advantage of these great classes as well. We had people from all over the Midwest attend each and every class.

We would certainly love to have more input on what types of education you, the members, would want to see presented during this year. It does get hard trying to figure out what everyone wants or needs. We are always open to any and all ideas that you as members would have. We are now planning a class for June of 2016 (undetermined at this time) and more for later on in the year. More automotive? Let us know! More electronics? Let us know! More transponders? We will try to fill your requests.

Secondly, we sadly have to bid a fond farewell to Jeff Magner, who is our 1st. Director on the board. He will be moving out of state soon with his family. We now have this position to fill on the board, and would like to see one of our members step up and take over this position. If you are interested in helping our association become even better, please feel free to contact either myself or Nola Deets. Thanks Jeff, for your years of service to the Iowa Chapter of ALOA. You will be missed as a member and a friend.

Thirdly, congratulations are in order for Brian Lough CRL, who was elected to the position of Vice President of our chapter. I am more than confident that Brian will put his experience and knowledge to work during his tenure. Brian is only 2 short classes from getting his CML. Go get ’em Brian.

In closing, I want to again thank all the members for their support during 2015, and am looking forward to seeing many of you at our quarterly meetings. Everyone take care, be safe, have a prosperous 2016, and may God bless.

Best regards to you all,

Mike Merritt, RL
Mike’s Lock and Key
Mike’s Lock and eKeys 4 Cars
President, Iowa Chapter of ALOA
319-330-9185