ISSA, the association for the cleaning industry worldwide, announced that Rudolph W. Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and best-selling author of the book, Leadership, will present the keynote address at the association's annual North American trade show, ISSA/INTERCLEAN USA 2006, in Chicago.

"We are thrilled to host such an esteemed American leader...," said ISSA executive director John Garfinkel, in a statement.

Giuliani will discuss "Principles of Leadership" at 8:30 a.m., Thurs. Oct. 5, and will follow up by participating in a brief question-and-answer period. He'll discuss the lessons he's learned from more than 30 years of public service and management roles, and how he drew on those lessons during the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

For more information, visit www.issa.com.

The Bearing Specialists Assn. launched a new Web site, located at www.bsahome.org, to better serve the needs of association members, industry leaders, and others who use it as a bearing industry resource. In addition to a new graphic look, the BSA home page has a news feed from the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors' SmartBrief newsletter.

The new site also includes links to certification, convention, industry partners, committees, sales training and other BSA materials; and a "Tools You Can Use" link, which directs visitors to BSA white papers, the Product Price Information Format, Educational Services Committee reports, BSA's Certified Bearing Specialist program, the In-House Training Guide, and the Performance Analysis Report.

For more information, visit www.bsahome.org.

The National Assn. of Electrical Distributors' Education & Research Foundation released a new research report, "Managing Customer Profitability," which examines ways to measure the profit each customer brings to a distributor's bottom line, and suggests strategies for improving, or eliminating, problem customers.

The study was conducted by Dr. Al Bates, founder and chairman of the Profit Planning Group, a research and education firm. Bates conducted research with specific distributors, discussing and reviewing templates they were using to analyze specific customer profitability. Working closely with NAED, Bates solicited input and feedback throughout the process to develop a package of tools to help distributors improve the profits they generate from each customer they serve.

"...We wanted to...provide NAED members with a tool to actually figure out the profitability of various customers," said Bates, in a statement.

For more information, visit www.naed.org.

The Specialty Tools & Fasteners Distributors Assn. announced that Jeff Campbell, vice president—sales of Irwin and Lenox Industrial Tools, will be the Associate State of the Industry speaker at STAFDA's Convention & Trade Show in Las Vegas this November. Campbell will speak at the General Session on Nov. 14, and will address manufacturer interests for the attendees.

The association also has expanded the hours of the convention's trade show, from 9 ½ hours to 12 hours. The show will run from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Tues., and Wed. from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. To gain this additional time for the trade show, the Rap Sessions have been dropped from the schedule.

For more information, visit www.stafda.org.

kgriffiths@reedbusiness.com