2016 SFATA Conference re-cap
The 2016 SFATA conference was a huge success! We were honored to sponsor the event and had a great time meeting new people who share the common goal of saving our wonderful community/industry. People who are willing to dedicate their lives/careers to a life-saving technology and put all of their personal agendas and opinions aside for the common good. It would be impossible to fully list all of the wonderful things that happened but here is a quick re-cap.
Panel discussions from some of our industry’s leading advocates including:
Greg Conoly (President of AVA) – Pamela Gorman (Executive director of SFATA) – Cap O’Rourke (President of the board of SFATA) – Julie Woessner (President of CASAA)
We got to hear from our national lobbyist Mike Hogan (Federal lobbyist for SFATA, The Alpine Group) He shed some light on the need to push harder than ever before to get in contact with our state representatives and ask them to contact their leaders and urge that the Cole/Bishop amendment be added to the Dec 9th 2016 bill.
Got to meet David Gorlitz from the “A Billion Lives” movie (Former Winston man, turned vaping advocate) See pic above
We also had the excruciating experience of watching a filmed interview with Mitch Zeller (The head of tobacco for FDA) He’s pretty ridiculous fyi.
Other notable speakers and panels covered various topics such as: Product development trends in a post Aug 8th world, Best practices q&a, PMTA Guidance and the true cost of compliance with response to Mitch Zeller’s interview.
Here’s a list of some of the speakers:
Scott Eley (President of AMESA) Focused on how vape shops and vapor businesses can stay compliant and offered best practice advice for shops and manufacturing liquids in-house.
Grover Norquist (President of Americans for Tax Reform) Focused on informing vapers on the horrible over reach of states applying sin taxes to vapor products and what we need to do to put a stop to it.
Gal Choen (Ph.D, Head of scientific and regulatory affairs for PAX Labs)
Tim Phillips (UK Managing director of e-cig intelligence)
Kat York (VP and general council of boosted e-liquid)
Julian Morris (VP of research for Reason Foundation)
Schell Hammel (VP of SFATA)
Arnaud Dumis (President of Geia Trend USA)
Amy McCann Baddi (President of VA vape shop)
April Myers (NE vaper and rebel e-liquids)
Kim Hesse (global lab servies inc)
Dr. Gene Gillman (Ph.D laboratory director Enthalpy Analytical INC.)
Azim Chowdhury (Partner at Keller and Heckman LLP)
Eric Gotting (Keller and Heckman LLP)
Phil Daman (Daman and associates)
Dr. Christopher Russell (Centre for substance use research UK)
Dr. Brad Rodu (Professor University of Louisville, Senior fellow at the heartland institute)
Dr. Richard Polosa, (M.D., Ph.D., professor of internal medicine, University of Catania)
Dr. Sally Satel (M.D. Author, lecturer at Yale University, Resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institue)
Professor Robert West (Department epidemiology and public health, Universty College London)
In closing: If you love vaping but you are not involved with SFATA or CASAA or another advocacy group. Shame on you! Stop what you are doing right now and get involved! This industry will only be saved by us. It’s time to push harder than we ever have before to save this community/industry that we love so much.
#PutYourMoneyWhereYourMouthIs
CLICK HERE TO JOIN SFATA IF YOU OWN A VAPE BUSINESS
CLICK HERE TO JOIN CASAA IF YOU ARE A VAPOR PRODUCT CONSUMER
Here’s a list of all of the other vendors that helped make this conference possible. Alfaliquid USA VAPE Magazine Veratad Technologies, LLC A Billion Lives Forever & Forbidden E-Liquids Vape Poker VaporB2B and EXHIBITORS Paranormal Blends, LLC Rumblepup Steam Elixir VON ERL HMMM DROPS Rebelliq Calco Commercial Insurance #GatorBoredDripTips FrequencyLiquid Flagship Vapor CompanyNOCA Elixirs 180 Vape and Top Hat Mods.
