The host of Automatic Merchandiser’s Vending & OCS Nation, Bob Tullio, has said it before. He loves hearing about the journey of both operators and suppliers. Robert Liva has a good story.

The owner of GTP – Graphics that Pop, is an animated, entertaining, candid and knowledgeable individual, especially when it comes to marketing and to serving clients in the convenience services industry.

He started out in 1973 fixing pinball machines at the age of 13. When he arrived in Houston Texas in 1976, he went right to work. In the vending business, working for operators, owning a vending company, was a location finder for 10 years as he balanced work and being a single parent. He even sold siding along the way – giving him an opportunity to learn something about selling and marketing. It was an opportunity to try a few things out.

Liva says there is no greater joy in life than giving, period. Along those lines, he has launched a non-profit organization called Path to Unity – A program that he says is designed to empower communities for real change – for positive change. Several hundred thousand dollars are committed to this community improvement effort – but there is a lot more to it than that. Former Dallas Cowboy star Michael Irvin is on board – and Liva said White Bear Coffee deserves a shout out for their early support. To learn more – visit www.pathtounity.com

From the supplier area (Connection Hub) to the line-up of speakers to the education sessions, NAMA's CTW for 2024 has been reimagined to help operators thrive in today's changing OCS climate.

In this episode of Automatic Merchandiser’s Vending & OCS Nation, the podcast for the convenience services industry, presented in cooperation with NAMA -it’s all about the upcoming CTW – the Coffee Tea and Water event, scheduled for December 11th and 12th in New Orleans.

NAMA's CTW 2024 has been designed specifically for operators and suppliers to collaborate on how to elevate OCS and Pantry offerings and evolve the client relationship, moving beyond trusted service provider to essential business partner.

Podcast host Bob Tullio sat down with two people who were very involved in the planning of the event – Linda Saldana of Seventh Wave Refreshments, the chairperson of Stakeholder Task Force that reimagined the new CTW and Tom Steuber of Associated Services, who also happens to be Chairperson of the NAMA Board of Directors.

Two things will be clear to you after listening to this podcast. Operators are excited about smart market technology and there is no end to the creative solutions/equipment being offered by smart market developers.

In this episode of Automatic Merchandiser’s Vending & OCS Nation, the podcast for the convenience services industry, host Bob Tullio takes an even deeper dive into the world of smart markets. In part one of this episode, released on September 24th, he talked to Ryan McWhirter of 365 Retail Markets, Elyssa Steiner from Cantaloupe and Yang Yu from Micromart.

In “Smart Markets Part II - Choosing a smart market is a multiple-choice question for operators,” Tullio talks to more smart market developers, creative minds who are driving the smart market movement. Mike Delazzer, founder of Redbox is now with Instant Retail Systems, Detlev Goedbloed of Structural Concepts, Fred Kahn from Kooick and Guy Moshe from Shekel, all share their product features and their vision for the future of smart markets.

Mike Jamison from New Age Vending and Jon Corto from Buffalo Strive give their take on the value of smart markets. Also mentioned in this podcast, Due North and AVS, two companies who play an important role for smart market developers.