TRN dealer organization to cease operations, prepares to become part of EWA

Technology Resource Network International (TRN) board members have notified members that the dealer organization will cease operations as a separate entities, and representatives will meet this week with Enterprise Wireless Alliance (EWA) officials to form an education-focused market council within EWA.

In a special TRN newsletter distributed on Saturday, it was announced that the TRNI board of directors unanimously resolved to “to close TRNI and NTSS operations; and, in cooperation with EWA, to form a new, unincorporated market council within the EWA organization dedicated to implementing educational, training and certification programs that will serve to promote and enhance the wireless industry.”

EWA President and CEO Mark Crosby explained what TRN would do as a market council within EWA.

 “It’s a market council, and a market council is dedicated to a specific segment of the industry,” Crosby said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “It has its own set of bylaws; it has its own mission; it has its own directors; and it has a specific mission that’s isolated within the market council. This particular mission is education and training, in collaboration with many of the really good organizations that are out there now doing this.

“TRN had a great run, and the part of its mission that’s going to survive through this market council … is the educational part, which always was one of the critical components.”

Crosby said that the market-council approach will allow EWA to assume the administrative functions for the TRN—for instance, the filing of taxes and collection of dues—within EWA’s normal structure, which is made easier by the fact that all TRN members also are EWA members.

“We were already sort of joined at the hip, from a membership standpoint and from an advocacy standpoint,” Crosby said. “This is the hassle-free method to keep the educational and training part of TRN alive

“I didn’t want to create another formal company, because you’ve got to manage it, you’ve got tax returns and all of that. All of this goes under EWA, but it’s really dedicate, with its own purpose, own bylaws and own meetings … I think it’s an important new leg on EWA’s corporate stool, if you will, to work on education and training issues.”

With this education and training mission in mind, the new market council—with the current TRN board expected to serve as the market council’s initial board of trustee—will manage the remaining TRNI assets, “a significant percentage of which will be dedicated to providing educational grants” in the name of Dave Robison, the organization’s former chairman who died in December 2014.

Representatives for TRN will meet with this week in Arizona with members of EWA’s Executive Committee to discuss details associated with the TRN transition, Crosby said. Some aspects of the TRN transition that have not been determined include a name for the market council, and whether the TRN change will impact the focus of the annual Wireless Leadership Summit trade show that traditionally has been co-sponsored by EWA and TRN, he said.