WINNERS OF THE
AAPN INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP AWARD 

The AAPN Industry Achievement Award was created in 2017 to recognize members who ‘got’ the AAPN, who stepped up whenever we asked for help, who made their commitment to others loud and clear. When it comes to the story of our industry, these award winners are the ones who learned the rules, mastered the rules and helped AAPN break the rules. For decades, they led us as we all learned forward together.

Chief among the 31 people who have earned this award is Walter T. Wilhelm, the founder of WWA Advisors and a longtime mentor to the AAPN. He is widely recognized as one of the most innovative and connected executives in the softgoods industry, and one of the pioneers in creating and implementing technology to streamline the product design and development processes.

In 2009 when we were in trouble as an organization, Walter convened a small forum of core leaders to reinvent our value proposition. The result was the 2010 AAPN Sustainability Conference which doubled our attendance and started an amazing trajectory of growth. To recognize Walter’s impact on the industry, in 2022 we renamed the AAPN Industry Achievement Award as ’The Walter’.

Here is an example of the award certificate:

1990’s
Larry Haddock, Professor Emeritus, SouthernTech 

Larry led the transition from the late Don Strickland to Sue Strickland taking over the AAPN in 1990. Larry brought Mike Todaro into AAPN in 1995. He has been constant mentor and guide to the growth of AAPN for decades, over its entire history.
 

 Alan Brooks, Founder, New Generation Computing 
 
During the loss of members following NAFTA, Alan Brooks was a strong supporter of our work with technology and marketing.  When we changed our name from ‘contractors association’ to ‘producers’ network’, Alan donated a large sum to cover the cost of marketing our new name.

Tony Anzovino, Global Apparel Sourcing 

2000’s
Joe Stephenson, Founder, Rocedes 

Joe has remained a member of the AAPN from its beginning. When he moved his factory to Nicaragua, he remained a member. His talk at our 2001 annual meeting opened the AAPN to Central American factories. Joe also created the AAPN Partners Program.

Kim Krummell Williams, Sourcing, Orvis

Kim attended our 2001 meeting as Timberland. She was there for the vote to open membership to the Americas. We supported brands for free but Kim believed in joining and became a lightning rod for other brands to do so. She was a keynote speaker at our first CAFTA Summit in 2003.

Susan Ganz, CEO, Lion Brothers  

In 2002, we got the idea to have a reception for sourcing execs the night before Material World. Suzy financed our first event at the Wolfsonian Museum on Miami Beach and strongly participated in our Sourcing Exec Roundtables for years. 
 

Walter Wilhelm, Founder, WWAdvisors  

Walter was a leader in reshaping the AAPN including the 2003 VF cycle time project; the 2003-7 CAFTA Summit Conferences; and the focus of AAPN meetings on issues like sustainability. WWA was an AAPN Partner for years.
 

 
 Keith Crisco, Founder, Asheboro Elastics  

At our 2003 annual conference in Montreal, Keith changed the way we ran meetings, from canned talks to issue-driven interaction. He led our 2005 delegation to Hong Kong and became a president, benefactor and leader of AAPN. Keith passed away during his run for NC’s congress in 2014. 
 

Jill Coleman, Alvanon

Jill was the ‘trim’ part of our 2003 cycle time project at VF. She helped create a detailed flow of production that we still use today. She taught us the role of trim and helped drive attendance to our 5 CAFTA Summits. She has served on our Board.
 
 
Barbara Zeins, President, Gerson & Gerson 

For years, Barbara has been our advocate and leader in understanding and practicing full value costing. Her 9 BIG FAT GARMENT LIES speech opened our eyes to bad practices. She has given talks for years that taught us all the value of ‘value’.

John Strasburger, SVP, Supply Chain, Williamson Dickie 

In 2009, John hosted us at VF and convinced us to change our meetings more issue driven topics, the first subject was on sustainability. In 2012 John created the 31 question AAPN ASIA/AMERICAS REPORT CARD giving us the first ‘score’ in the industry.

2010’s

Scott Vaughn, President, Rocedes

Preparing for the 2010 conference on sustainability, Scott created the 10 minute video called Rocedes Apparel Social Responsibility. This single video was sent to hundreds of brands and retailer confirming Americas’ leadership in doing the right thing. 
 
 
Randy Harward, SVP, Materials, Under Armour  

For years, especially on the 2010 sustainability meeting, Randy has been a source of pure thought on social responsibility and partnership with factories. He took a long view that most companies never heard explained before and changed us to a more ‘big picture' perspective on the industry.
 

Carlos Arias, CEO, WINDS Group 

2010 was when Carlos took charge of the AAPN as president and started mandatory monthly Board conference calls. He turned thoughts into actions and ideas into plans that raised the profile of the entire Americas. He hosted one of our SUMMIT conferences in Antigua, Guatemala
 

David Sasso, VP, Buhler Quality Yarn 

David became president at a time when the focus was on factories and brands. He alone showed us how fiber, yarn and fabric played a key role in the chain for market differentiation and creation of value for brands. David is an example of link in the chain that markets his knowledge of the entire supply chain.

Rick Horwitch, VP, Bureau Veritas 

As a former factory owner and now a high level executive serving major brands worldwide, Rick has a strategic brand-centric view like no other. He raised our profile to the largest retailers in the US and increased our understanding of the needs of apparel brands.  
 

Kurt Cavano, Founder TradeCard, now Retired

Every year, even when he was our president, Kurt has given presentations on major developments about the internet that warned us, advised us, reassured us and educated us for what was coming in time to apply it to ourselves.  No-one has shared more about technology than Kurt.
 
 
Juan Zighelboim, co-Founder, TexOps, El Salvador 

Juan served as our president for two years. He dramatically raised the caliber of speakers we secured and the sophistication of our message to members. This alone generated the largest meetings in our history. No member has embraced our meetings or applied the content of them to his company more than Juan.
 
  

Jesus 'Chuy' Canahuati, General Manager, Elcatex, Honduras

In 2016 Chuy sent us a copy of the Honduras' amazing Five Year Plan called Honduras 2020. He presented it at our 2016 Annual Conference. This in turn led him to challenge AAPN to host a grand opening for his Utexa Synthetic Yarn Spinning Mill in Honduras which we did in November 2018, one of our largest events ever.

Jeff Streader, Founder and Managing Partner, GoGlobal Retail

Jeff has remained an AAPN member in 6 companies. His 2003 VF C. America supply chain project documented timing for the first time. His leadership in our 2021 post-covid forum set our direction. Always speaking, moderating, interacting and networking.

 Joe Cuervo, Kohl's

Industry veteran Joe, a long time AAPN member, was hired by Honduras 2020 to run the textiles part of their aggressive plan. This made him available for the enormous challenge of organizing our Nov 2018 event in Honduras. It was so well promoted that we maxed out at 250 people, turning away over 100 others. This was a staggering AAPN achievement.

Ron Roach, President, Contempora Fabric

Ron was frustrated that so few of his customers know how knitting worked. So he worked for over a year with AAPN creating the 'AAPN Carolina Mills Bus Tour'. In both 2018 and 2019 we took two dozen people from a dozen brands and retailers of 5 and 6 day tours of 6-7 mills. This has had an enormous impact on training emerging leaders in our industry.

Don Hire, Crowley Logistics

Don has been a long time Board member and advocate for the AAPN. We have worked with Don in virtually every country in Central America. He almost knows more about textiles than those who produce them. He has been a tough, relentless force in keeping us moving forward knowing the most important word in our industry remains --- logistics. 
 
 
 2019

Tom Glaser, President, VF Supply Chain

Tom has frequently time out of his slammed calendar to help us. Most recently Tom anchored the Charlotte Regional Conference, as seen above. His talk to so many young people who seldom get sent to industry events had a powerful and lasting impact.
 

David Ha, Owner, TexOps apparel factory, El Salvador

David is our network's strongest cheerleader. He goes to every event and makes an effort to speak up. He went with us on delegations to Sri Lanka and also to Asia. In addition, he was one of the driving forces behind our 2018 summit in Honduras.

William Yidi, Finotex

William has always gone above and beyond for AAPN, producing give-aways for our meetings and hosting tours. The tour of his operation was one of the highlights of our 2018 Honduras summit. He is one of the kindest and most giving members of AAPN.

Jeannamarie Cox, independent, industry veteran

Jeannamarie has done numerous projects for the AAPN, especially creating the AAPN Member Plaque. She has gone to our Leadership Forums and served as a sounding board for new projects here. She is a veteran of a number of brands and a consultant to several of our member.

Devin Steele, eTextileCommunications

Devin has served as our traveling photographer and journalist of both of our Carolin Mill Tours and other events. He is a brilliant and tireless writer about our industry and has highlighted so many of our members.

Sandy and Peter Brink, Advanced Manufacturing Group

Sandy and her recently deceased husband Peter (2019) have come to virtually all of our meetings. Peter hosted a special roundtable on how to better interact with retailers in Miami several years ago.

Lynne Sprugel, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of abuzz global LLC

In 2020, with all AAPN events cancelled, Lynne organized a survey that created the AAPN Future Forums, generating 28 sessions with over 50 people creating over 7 hours of original content. These future-looking insights were an industry exclusive.

Ed Gribbin, CEO at Gribbin Strategic LLC  

In March 2020, when the virus hit, Ed created a database of over 1,000 producers and literally ran production of billions of masks and millions of gowns across the U.S. Ed was alone in this brilliant initiative and kept many thousands of people working.