The 14th Annual SACA Leadership Conference (LC) was held at Logan University in Chesterfield Mo., Sept. 29 through Oct. 1. The theme for this extraordinary event was “Building Bridges Through Leadership.” Students left the conference with a deeper understanding of the importance of continued involvement in ACA and a better grasp of the association’s new direction. 

Nearly two years ago, ACA embarked on a new journey – a branding initiative – to better understand how we can relate to and remain relevant to members now and in the future. We hired a well known branding consultant who reached out to members, non-members, other health care providers and a variety of stakeholders to ask what ACA means to them. After more than 30 hours of interviews, hundreds of survey responses and volumes of research, our consultant’s recommendations were presented to ACA’s Board of Governors last year on how best to redefine our brand. The results were a wake-up call, to say the least. While some of the information uncovered was expected, other findings and comments were uncomfortable to hear. But we had to hear them.