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LAS VEGAS — As the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association kicked off its 64th Annual Convention and Expo this week, NIADA chief executive officer Michael Linn offered a welcome message and shared with attendees what the conference will entail.

His message was as follows:

"NIADA welcomes all attendees to Caesars in Las Vegas and our 64th Annual Convention and Expo. This week's activities will be filled with exceptional opportunities for everyone attending. There are three full days of education and three full days of the expo," he shared.

"Our three tracks of education cover general topics, retail and buy-here, pay-here … and with some 130-plus participating companies in the expo, there will be plenty of new products and services available for all dealers attending," Linn continued. "Attendance at last year's convention was exceptional with over 1,200 attendees and with a dealer to vendor ratio of 3-to-1.

"People are still registering, but we have already exceeded last year's numbers. In fact, attendance could be an all-time record for us!" he added. "We'll have a better count by week's end. Wednesday night is our Leadership Awards banquet followed by the televised National Quality Dealer Awards on Thursday night.

"Scholarship recipients will be named during the Leadership Awards," he continued. "This year we received 5,052 scholarship applications from students vying for four regional scholarships and we have 21 State Quality Dealers from around the country taking part in Thursday night's activities. So, there's more to come this week and certainly something here for everyone."