NIBA–The Belting Assn. will hold its three-day convention Sept. 15–18 at the Marriott Hotel & Marina in San Diego.

The convention, themed "Mission Leadership…Thriving with Change," will feature general sessions led by presenters including: Afterburners, a team of former and current fighter pilots using combat-proven methodologies to help companies achieve victory in today's business environment; Bill Hodgdon, whose articles on sales productivity and marketing strategy have been published in national and international publications; and Joan Embry, goodwill ambassador for the world-renowned San Diego Zoo.

NIBA's conference booth program will be held Sat., Sept. 18. Other events include an opening night entertainment/buffet mixer, tours, three spouse/companion programs, and the farewell evening with buffet dinner and entertainment.

For more information, visit www.niba.org.

The Specialty Tools and Fasteners Distributors Assn. expanded its member benefits by adding new services.

STAFDA and McGraw-Hill Construction have partnered to offer STAFDA members significant savings on Dodge's construction reports, construction data and other publications. MHC publishes Dodge, Sweets, Architectural Record, Engineering News-Record and Regional Publications. STAFDA and J.J. Keller & Assoc., a supplier of safety and regulatory compliance solutions for transportation, manufacturing, construction, security and general industry, have joined to offer members a 10 percent discount on all their products purchased through the "Members-Only" section of STAFDA's Web site. STAFDA also has partnered with Monster.com, one of the Internet's largest career sites. From the STAFDA Web site, members can post job openings or view resumes from Monster's site.

For more information, visit www.stafda.org.

The Power Transmission Distributors Assn. announced a number of enhancements to its Industry Summit, themed "Distribution—What Do You Do Again?" held Oct. 14–16 in Orlando, Fla.

Improvements include: enhancing the flow of the conference by moving all attendee evening events to Friday and manufacturing hospitalities to Saturday night; expanding the time for on-property hospitalities; adding a PTDA Hospitality to be voluntarily underwritten by manufacturers who don't host their own event; replacing the Saturday dinner/dance with a more informal Friday evening networking event; adding a Saturday morning keynote address; and retaining time for peer networking with separate distributor and manufacturer luncheons.

For more information, visit www.ptda.org.

A just-completed survey of its largest members by the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors indicates that 67 percent of the respondents intend to increase their workforce this year. On average, these companies will grow their number of employees by 4.7 percent, according to the respondents.

Fifty-eight of the nation's largest wholesaler-distributors with collective sales of $177 billion participated in the survey conducted in early March. Survey respondents credit the president's tax cuts and incentives for triggering much of the growth.

For more information, visit www.naw.org.

kgriffiths@reedbusiness.com