www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | AprIL 2015 11
A lot of what I heard as I started throw-
ing out my ideas was this is how we've
always done it, or this is how the other
tradeshows do it. But I am open to explor-
ing things.
FON: Moving the expo from Boston to
Worcester was a big move; what brought
that about?
Leshine: The primary factor was
price. Boston was just so expensive. It's an
expensive city for the exhibitors and it's an
expensive city for the attendees.
FON: How are you working to ease the
transition into the new venue?
Leshine: Some of the vendors do
dinners on the first night of the show and
a lot of folks aren't familiar yet as to where
they can go in Worcester. We've worked it
out so that we can help them secure a venue
through Destination Worcester. We're
identifying restaurants that have private
rooms, or areas that can be set aside. We're
also working with some of the restaurant
groups on various cost-saving incentives
for the dinners. The same concept is being
applied to our attendees. We're work-
ing to come up with promotions such as
meal discounts through the restaurants,
for attendees who may not be invited to
a dinner.
One neat thing on the education front,
we are going to offer buses to pick up tech-
nicians in all of the states and we're going
to teach them a class for NORA certifica-
tion while they are on the bus. A 45 minute
class, then they can go to the tradeshow
and we'll bus them back.
FON: This is quite a change for you;
how is it working out so far?
Leshine: I'm excited. I had no
industry background, but I believe that
allows me to bring a lot of fresh perspec-
tive in areas from the expo to marketing
and the relationships with other states.
Obviously, I picked the absolute worst
winter to make my move from Louisiana
to Massachusetts. And every day I am
learning more about oil and gasoline than
I ever knew existed.
FON:What stands out about the indus-
try so far?
Leshine: The people I meet and their
passion has been really, really cool. We
have a volunteer board and they all put
in a lot of time and energy, without any
direct financial gain for their efforts. At the
end of the day they are all competitors in
some shape or form, but they understand
that there is a common good if they work
together. That is very neat. It's infectious
and excites me. You don't see that in a lot
of places.
