Drag Illustrated Issue 114, October 2016 | Page 82
DR AG I LLU S TR ATED ROUN DTABLE
Onward
& Upward
Two of SEMA’s finest – Chris
Douglas and Kyle Fickler –
tackle a slew of the industry’s
toughest challenges
BY JO S H H ACH AT
W
h e n C h r i s D o u g l a s wa s e l e c t e d t o
the SEMA Board of Directors, he viewed it as
a chance to make an impact. With a number
of issues facing the industry, Douglas and the
rest of the 10 members on SEMA’s Board of Directors won’t be short on ways to do just that.
From involving the younger generation to finding
new pockets of growth to recognizing the issues
that are prevalent in today’s industry to the highly
controversial RPM Act, it is a key time for the
entire motorsports sector. The decisions and direction made by SEMA and its board members
could pay major dividends in several areas when
it comes to growth, but overcoming a handful of
key issues will be paramount in doing that.
It’s a challenge that Douglas, the COMP Performance Group Vice President of Marketing,
has accepted head-on.
“I’m very excited,” Douglas said. “It’s a chance to
hopefully shape and help guide the industry from
a very high level. If you’re like I am and grew up
in this industry and really care about it, and you
want to see your kids have those opportunities
20-30 years from now, I’m not sure how you could
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not be excited about trying to help.”
For Kyle Fickler, the Director of Business
Development at Aeromotive, he jumped at the
opportunity to serve a second term on SEMA’s
Board of Directors. After serving his first threeyear term, Fickler felt as though he had plenty
more to give, especially in seeing how his role
has developed as a board member over the last
few years. Being able to give back to an industry that’s given a great deal to him is simply an
added bonus.
“One of the biggest benefits I’ve had in my
SEMA activity is you end up falling in love with
segments that are outside of what you do day-today,” Fickler said. “At some point you find yourself
in a situation where some other industry segment
or manufacturer, where their segment has an issue on the horizon or they’ve solved one, and you
find that just about everybody across the entire
SEMA platform ends up having these similar
battles, just at different points in time.
“There’s 10 board members and there’s so many
things we deal with. I was elected as a manufacturer, but you put yourself in a position where
you represent the interests of the distributors,
of the retailers, of the reps, of the installers. Every segment in the food chain, you owe some
responsibility to them, so if you’re doing it right
you find yourself almost blind to what you’re
most personal interests are and thinking for the
benefit of the entire industry. That’s probably
the most rewarding part to me, shouldering that
responsibility.”
But there is indeed a large responsibility, one
that Fickler and Douglas take very seriously in
trying to push the entire industry forward in a
positive direction.
Drag Illustrated spoke with Fickler and
Douglas on a variety of issues, including where
they have seen growth, some of the major challenges the industry is currently facing and, of
course, the RPM Act and how both are expecting
a long, arduous fight.
How would you gauge the overall health
and wellness of the automotive aftermarket industry?
Chris Douglas: I think right now stable is
the word that comes to mind with some pockets of growth, and, of course, there are some
pockets that have some challenges. I would say
I’m constantly trying to watch further out, 5-10
years from now, and the reality is they are some
challenges on the horizon that we’re going to
have to address. I think as an industry we’re going to have be willing to evolve and become a
little more efficient, a little more savvy when it
comes to reaching the next generation, a little
Issue 114