ServNet auction owners and members of its executive team met for the group's semi-annual business meeting and a visit with national remarketers at a Meet the Owners event last month.

At the Owners' Meeting, members discussed the group's Leadership Succession, which will occur this fall.

Carolina Auto Auction’s Eric Autenrieth will assume duties as ServNet's president, and current president, Kevin Brown of Missouri Auto Auction, will be succeeded by Patty Stanley of Carolina/Indiana Auto Auction as chairman of the board.

"The dominant competitive advantage of ServNet Auctions is its dynamic Owners Group, many of whom are second- and third-generation auto auction operators. ServNet's semi-annual Owners' Business Meetings are prime opportunities for the auctions' owners, who have decades of experience and a personal investment in the industry, to discuss the challenges of the market, as well as to identify opportunities for growth and explore new methods," said ServNet chief executive officer Pierre Pons.

The group also discussed the role ServNet next generation auction owners will play in building and strengthening the independent auction group.

"While the board as it currently stands is led by first-generation owners Kevin Brown and Patty Stanley, the remaining five seats are filled by next generation owners Eric Autenrieth, Beth Barber (State Line Auto Auction), Steve DeLuca (Auto Auction of New England), Ashley Dietze (San Antonio Auto Auction) and Rob Thompson (Mid-State Auto Auction). These owners have all developed into strong, capable, visionary leaders in their own right, as they continue the pattern set by their parents in building the family businesses," said Pons. "Their participation helps ensure the vitality, longevity and strength of our organization."

Additionally, the group reviewed the impact their moves to smaller, mobile auction operations in secondary markets, as well as the impact of incentives or rebates to high volume customers on both the dealer and commercial sides of the auction business, according to ServNet.

Following the business meeting, ServNet's owners and executive staff met with Dallas-area based commercial accounts and industry partners at a Meet the Owners Luncheon.

During the luncheon, the group announced the seven winners of this year's ServNet Scholarship program for children of ServNet Auction employees attending both two- and four-year colleges.

"We were pleased to expand the scholarship program this year, adding an additional award for $2,500 for a student attending a four-year college," ServNet's Brown said in a news release. "We are very happy to announce the names of seven ServNet scholarship recipients."

Recipients of ServNet’s $1,500 scholarship for study at a two-year college include Darlene Delgado and Douglas Stack.

Delgado begins her freshman year at Glendale Community College of Arizona, where she will pursue an associate of arts degree in social and behavior science and Stack is going into his sophomore year at Corning Community College in New York, where he is a CAD major.

Recipients of the $2,500 scholarship for study at a four-year college or university include Madelyn Andrews, who attends SUNY College at New Paltz, N.Y.; Anne Dabroski of Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pa.; Timothy Fujii, a junior at American University in Washington D.C.; Grant Richardson, a junior at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.; and Nina Emmick, a junior at the University of South Dakota, who has been awarded a second ServNet scholarship.

Last year, Emmick, daughter of Angela Emmick of KCI Kansas City, won one of ServNet's first scholarships as a sophomore, and she is currently pursuing a degree in nursing.

"Encouraging education is vital to the health of our industry, and we're pleased that ServNet's Scholarship program will offer assistance for both two- and four-year college programs," Stanley added.

"The auction industry is as much about 'family' as it is about anything else, and we believe that ServNet's Scholarship Program is both an important way to support that family as well as an investment in our future."

ServNet said the scholarship program was established last year as an ongoing initiative to help employees and their families pursue higher education.

In January, additional information and application forms for the 2018-2019 academic year scholarship awards will be available at www.servnetauctions.com.