John MacDougall to Be Honored at 2015 NYACS Trade Show

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS) will honor convenience store industry icon, the late John MacDougall, with 60 seconds of silence at the beginning of its 29th annual trade show. The "MacDougall Memorial Minute" will take place at 11 a.m. prior to the opening of exhibits on Thursday, May 14 at Syracuse's Oncenter.

This year's NYACS trade show is the first to take place since the passing of MacDougall, who was president and CEO of Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes and co-founder of NYACS. He was instrumental in the development and success of the organization since its 1986 inception, according to the announcement.

"Tools of the Trade" is the theme for the 2015 trade show, which is free to all interested member and non-member retailers and open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 14. The event will feature more than 150 exhibits by the Northeast's leading c-store suppliers, equipment dealers and service providers.

A pre-trade show golf tournament and welcome party are scheduled for May 13.

Prior to the opening of the trade show, NYACS will offer five concurrent free educational workshops for retailers:

• "Achieving Top Tier Results: Why the Best are Better" with Casey McKenzie, senior principal consultant, Impact 21 Group.
• "Recipe for C-store Foodservice Success" with Michael Davis, vice president of member services, NACS, the Association for Convenience & Fuel Retailing.
• "Tools for Assembling a C-store A-Team" with Linda McKenna, Convenience Store Coaches Inc.
• "How Do I Know What My C-Store Business is Worth?" with Terry Monroe, president, American Business Brokers.
• "EMV Chip Migration: Mapping Out Your Strategy" with James Hervey, director, product management, Americas Petroleum Solutions at VeriFone.

All retailer attendees will be entered in periodic random drawings for cash prizes up to $500. There will also be a raffle for tickets to the "Belgium Comes to Cooperstown" beer festival; the QuickChek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning; a performance of "The Book of Mormon" in Buffalo, N.Y.; a concert by blues legend Buddy Guy in Ithaca, N.Y.; a GoPro Hero4 video camera; and other prizes.

Following the trade show will be the traditional Chairman's Banquet, where three new members will be inducted to the New York Convenience Store Hall of Fame, as CSNews Online previously reported.