In recognition of his service and as a token of gratitude, the North American Equipment Dealers Assn. (NAEDA) Board presented the NAEDA CEO, Kim Rominger, with a Distinguished Service Award at the association board meeting on Monday, November 6.

Rominger celebrated 40 years as an equipment dealers association executive on November 1. He is the son of a rural mail carrier and a part-time farmer. He grew up on a 300-acre farm that grew corn and beans and had the occasional hayfield in French Lick, Ind.

Coming out of college, he started his career working for Federated Insurance. He was with Federated for three short years, and it was through that relationship that he began working with dealer associations. Eventually, in 1983, he met David Lucy, who was the Executive Director of the Indiana Implement Retailers Assn. at that time.

Lucy was looking for a short-term field rep, but also a long-term “number two”—as he was planning to retire soon and was looking for his successor. However, he decided to hang around for another 17 years before Rominger took the reins.

During his career, Rominger has had the unique ability to wear two hats at the same time, and to wear them well. He found himself managing two separate associations simultaneously more than once. He managed a number several of association mergers, including Indiana joining Kentucky to create Mid-America. He then ran both Mid-America and the Ohio-Michigan Equipment Dealers Assn. for 15 years before their merger, which formed United. In June 2017, he took leadership of United and EDA before they merged to form NAEDA in 2022.

When Rominger started, there were 34 regional equipment dealer associations, and he has been instrumental in several of those mergers. He has also seen first-hand the changing demographics of our dealerships, ownership groups and customer base. Most importantly, Rominger has always had the dealers’ best interests at heart.