Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/236097
A Closer Look Meet Brian McGuire Brian McGuire, president and CEO of Associated Equipment Distributors as of Jan. 6, can be reached at bmcguire@aednet.org, 630-574-0650, ext. 326. AED's new president and CEO is an active listener who also likes action, and he's ready to help AED member companies grow stronger through participation in their association. BY KIM PHELAN Brian McGuire may not have any "Backdraft" movie-type tales to tell from his days as a volunteer firefighter and captain of a Chicago-area crew of 12, but those 20 years of his life certainly played a role in building the kind of leader he is today. A man of action who is both service-minded and team-oriented, Brian is AED's new president and CEO as of Jan. 6, and he's ready to bring an arsenal of association management know-how to the job, and a whole lot more. "When you're a volunteer [firefighter], you certainly learn to identify what needs to be done quickly and get it done," Brian said. "And it really does teach you to work with a diverse group of people, and it allows you to learn how to make decisions quickly – and when you make those decisions it's not easy to run away from them, because they generally have a very public outcome." 26 | www.cedmag.com | Construction Equipment Distribution | January 2014 He doesn't deny the adrenaline rush that came with that work, but he hung up the helmet in 2008 when his career took a new and more demanding turn as executive vice president and then president of the Tooling and Manufacturing Association, which recently changed its name to the Technology and Manufacturing Association. At the TMA, he proved himself to be a problem-solver and dove in to effect major positive changes in what was, at the time, a struggling organization. "Membership was declining," he said. "The revenues were falling and participation in the association was lagging, to say the least; and there was real concern about how they were going to reach the next generation of members. Their training programs had seen a sharp decline, driven by both the economic recession as well as (continued on page 28)