The 2023 skummunity Award Winners

The skummunity awards were created to honor the explorers, rule-breakers, dreamers, and innovators in the branded merchandise industry. At the live skucon virtual event on January 18th, five recipients were recognized for their radical leadership and generosity:

Distributor COMMUNITY CHAMPION: Mitch Silver, PRintable Promotions

The Distributor Community Champion Award recognizes a distributor who gives selflessly, shares their ideas freely, offers a creative idea, a lending hand, always ready with a smile and a solution. They exemplify standards of the modern entrepreneur: Be human, help others, and believe in the power of giving.

Mitch Silver is one of the most recognizable names to many in the community for good reason: Mitch is always —always— willing to lend a helping hand, which is why we were so honored to recognize him as the distributor community champion for 2023. Mitch couldn’t make the awards ceremony at skucon but, in typical Mitch fashion, he created an acceptance video for the event:

Supplier COMMUNITY CHAMPION: Brittany Tiringer, Tekweld

Always On. There when you need them. Ready with a fast, creative idea. A helpful tip. With mad problem-solving skills, the Supplier Community Champion makes all distributors look like winners in the commonsku community.

Brittany Tiringer is the New York Regional Sales Manager for Tekweld and an exemplar in the skummunity for how to connect and create magic by providing a helping hand to both customers as well as fellow suppliers!

Shops Innovation Leader: Michelle Guetle, The Callard Company

This distributor is leading the pack when it comes to driving sales growth through the creative uses of ecommerce shops for their end clients. They excel at brilliant shop creation, stellar marketing and leveraging shops for accelerated sales growth!

Michelle Guetle and her team at The Callard Company have been leading the pack when it comes to shops innovation. The Callard team joined commonsku in Feb 2020, but then Covid hit, and they decided to double-down on shops. In Michelle’s words, it became “a game changer”. Developing over 70 shops in Q4 of 2020 alone, they jumped in and turned the reactive idea of selling a shop into a proactive priority. Congrats to Michelle and team, and thank you for inspiring us with your innovative use of shops!

Supplier Connected Workflow: Holly Brown, Bill Peterson, Erin Harris, and Alex Parkes

A modern mover and shaker, this supplier is at the cutting edge of business process, understanding that to connect the entire workflow - from ideation to final electronic PO to inventory and ship notifications - means a seamless experience, faster and more accurate orders, and a simpler life for their customers.

Within one month of going live, 50% of commonsku distributors’ purchase orders for PCNA were submitted by ePO. That’s an astounding acceleration of adoption for a company with so many different products, imprint processes, and complexity. The PCNA integration was led by Bill Peterson, Holly Brown, Erin Harris, and Alex Parkes. Accepting the award on behalf of PCNA was Holly Brown and Bill Peterson:

Distributor Entrepreneur of the Year: Tom Rector, Screenbroidery

Grit. Hustle. Perseverance. Resilience. Creativity. From adversity to breakthrough, this distributor embodies today’s modern, entrepreneurial spirit and whose growth journey inspires us all to reach deep and go big.

Tom Rector (Founder and CEO) and his team at ScreenBroidery grew over 143% from 2021 to 2022. Of the many accomplishments that Screenbroidery achieved over 2023, one of them was a special Shark Tank Experience they created that brought together their best customers and key supplier partners (you can learn about that experience here). Tom and his team continue to be such incredible leaders in our industry, and we are proud to recognize Tom as the Distributor Entrepreneur of the Year.

Thank you Kate Plummer and Team at Clearmount!

A big congrats to all our winners and a special thanks to Kate Plummer (Vice President of Sales and Marketing) and those on the Clearmount team for their beautiful work creating these awards, you can check out their stunning work here. (Pictured above, Bobby Lehew presenting Michelle Guetle with her Shops Innovation Award).