The longtime CEO of the Specialty Tools and Fasteners Distributors Association plans to step down, the group announced at its recent trade show.
Beginning Jan. 1, STAFDA will be managed by Frontline Co., a Springfield, Illinois, association management company, and Georgia Foley, along with STAFDA Member Services Director Cathy Usher, will become Frontline employees. Although both will remain with STAFDA, Foley will reduce her hours, and the trade group has launched a search process to find her successor.
STAFDA said in the announcement that the more than 1,900-member trade group only has two official employees and is “dangerously understaffed.”
Frontline, which manages the Concrete Sawing and Drilling Association and engineering associations in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, among other groups, will provide the back office support that STAFDA “so desperately needs.”
Foley first joined STAFDA in 1994 and ultimately succeeded her father, Morrie Halvorsen, as its CEO. STAFDA, a nonprofit, will continue to be owned by its member companies.
“I’ve been gifted with a career beyond my wildest dreams to serve STAFDA members who are so near and dear to my heart, but shifting over to Frontline will get STAFDA in a far safer place than it is right now with only a staff of two,” Foley said in a statement.
STAFDA members also elected the group’s leadership for 2026 at the Phoenix trade show, including new STAFDA President Matt Kitchens, the vice president of sales at California Service Tool, and Vice President Erika Scherman, the owner of MC Tool & Safety Sales in suburban Minneapolis.
The trade group will celebrate its 50th annual convention next year in Southern California.
