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Finance (to learn how to pronounce Finance, click
By: Nick Mihalopoulos (to learn how to pronounce Mihalopoulos, clic
I think it’s been some time since Finance has written in the FreightVine and we are happy to
share with ALC what has been happening here! But, first, we should look at some historical
events to see how it happened. On May 16, 1994 some may remember that Joaquin Balaguer
was elected President of the Dominican Republic, but here at ALC we remember it as the day
Valerie Logan started in LA Sales and then soon after began spearheading ALC’s Credit and
Collection efforts! You also may remember that on August 12th 1908, the transportation
industry was forever changed when Henry Ford built the first Model T. But, more importantly
90 years later, Steve Doerfler started at ALC and some years later coined the phrase, “Built
Finance Tough.” Wednesday, March 8th 2000 was a huge day for “Who Wants to be a
Millionaire” as it brought in 31.98 million viewers. But, here in Finance we remember it as the
first day Erin Lopez began approving credit for our next million-dollar customer! Finally, for
Honda drivers in India, they remember September 6, 2011 as a day when their car was part of
a massive recall for a faulty power window switch that could cause a fire. Here at ALC, Nick
Mihalopoulos began recalling Excel formulas that could cause a “#VALUE!” error.
We’ve had some big milestones here recently. In March, Erin celebrated her 15-year
anniversary and we went to see Wicked to celebrate. It was a great show and I was surprised
that the Wicked Witch was much nicer than some of the Dun and Bradstreet reports we run on
prospective customers. Steve just celebrated his 40 th birthday in July and has recently begun
reviving his German/Austrian roots. So, if he happens to see one of those “wicked” Dun and
Bradstreet reports on a customer asking for credit you’ll probably receive a big “NEIN!”
Valerie recently visited Phoenix, Cleveland and Louisville to help fine tune some of their
accounting and collection procedures. We met in “The Finance Conference Room” to discuss her
visits and were happy she met and spent one-on-one time with those offices. Now, she’s
headed across the big pond for a European vacation! Once the European Central Bank heard
Valerie was coming to Europe they asked if she could help them with a special collections’
assignment in which she answered OXI! See Demetrios for translation.