2026 IEDA Midyear Meeting
Everything you want and deserve from an IEDA business meeting:
- Fantastic networking with successful independent equipment dealers
- Business program covering economic, industry, and dealership intelligence
- Our famous Welcome Party with live music
- Exciting Formula 1 simulated racing event
- Rooftop fun at Wrigley Field for a Cubs game — SOLD OUT!
- Round of golf Wednesday morning — SOLD OUT!
Luxury accommodations at the Hilton/Oak Brook Hills Resort
Event open to IEDA members only. If you’d like to apply for IEDA membership, learn more here.
REGISTRATION FEE: $395 per person (Includes all events except golf)
Hilton Chicago/Oak Brook Hills Resort & Conference Center
3500 Midwest Rd, Oak Brook, IL 60523
630-850-5555
SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE
Morning: Golf Outing — SOLD OUT!
2026 MIDYEAR MEETING SPONSORS
WELCOME PARTY
Monday, September 14 | 6 – 9:30pm
Location: Hilton Chicago/Oak Brook Hills Resort & Conference Center
3500 Midwest Rd, Oak Brook, IL 60523
Cocktails, heavy appetizers, live music.
MORNING BUSINESS PROGRAM
Tuesday, September 15 | 8am – 12noon
Location: Chicago Hilton
Includes Breakfast. See below for session details.
AFTERNOON EVENT
Tuesday, September 15 | 1 – 4pm
F1 Simulated Racing
Location: F1® Arcade Chicago (River North)
1 W Grand Avenue, Chicago, IL 60610
Lunch, drinks, gaming areas, rooftop lounge. Luxury bus transportation provided.
EVENING EVENT
Tuesday, September 15 | 6pm
Cubs Baseball Game
Location: Wrigley Field
1060 W. Addison St, Chicago, IL 60613
Rooftop area designated for IEDA party. Casual food & drinks. Luxury bus transportation provided.
SPEAKER HIGHLIGHTS
JARRETT HARRIS
IronConnect / IronAdvisor Insights
Construction Equipment Market Update
Jarrett will talk about:
- What does the construction equipment market look like when data centers, not residential housing, are driving demand?
- Which OEMs are likely to see the greatest benefit, and why might that fuel a shifting competitive environment?
- How will high-profile IPOs and an OEM-backed rental push reshape the broader equipment market?
Jarrett Harris has spent more than 20 years helping decision-makers understand the stories that market sentiment, buyer psychology, and equipment-cycle data are telling about the construction equipment industry. In 2024, he helped launch IronAdvisor Insights, a market intelligence platform built to help audiences see trends in the new, used, and rental equipment sectors more clearly.
Luke Powers
Co-founder & CEO, Gearflow
Customer Technology Snapshot …
Speak to Build: Why Natural Language is the Key to Jobsite Productivity
Contractors are currently battling a 40-year decline in productivity, and the internal chaos of the modern jobsite often spills right onto your parts and rental counters. In this educational session, we will pull back the curtain on how the top contractors in the country manage job site equipment needs — and why traditional software has failed them. We’ll explore the internal “coordination gap” and how natural language AI is emerging as the ultimate tool to turn job site chaos into seamless execution.
What you will learn in this session:
- Inside the "Coordination Gap": Step into the shoes of the country’s top contractors to understand the massive internal friction that occurs between a jobsite needing equipment and your dealership receiving the call.
- Why Forms Fail the Field: Learn why forcing site superintendents to use dropdown menus and traditional software is a losing battle, and why they will always default to the fastest method: a phone call or text.
- Bridging the Gap with Natural Language: Discover how conversational AI allows the job site to "just call it in," working invisibly in the background to transcribe unstructured, chaotic requests into clean, organized data.
- Aligning with the Future Jobsite: Understand how this shift from manual data entry to AI-driven workflows will change the way top contractors procure equipment and service, equipping you with the knowledge to be a stronger, more proactive dealership partner.
Luke Powers is the founder and CEO of Gearflow, which launched in Chicago in 2018. Today, Gearflow is the AI-powered procurement platform for the fleets that build America. Through automated workflows and seamless communication tools, Gearflow is redefining how modern fleet teams keep jobs flowing.
Prior to founding the company, Luke began his career in logistics before joining his family’s Chicagoland wholesale equipment rental business, USM Rentals. While traveling the country calling on equipment rental companies of all sizes, he experienced firsthand the daily hurdles these businesses faced. He saw the complicated, chaotic manual effort required by mixed fleets to procure the mission-critical parts needed to keep equipment running.
Recognizing a massive coordination gap in the industry, Luke launched Gearflow to bridge the disconnect between the job site and vendors. The platform evolved into a single digital layer that allows fleet teams and vendors to automate tedious procurement tasks so they can focus on what they do best: keeping jobs running. Luke resides outside of Chicago with his family and is a proud father of four.
Troy Harrison
Real AI, Real Deals: A Live Look at Two Tools Every Equipment Dealer Can Use Tomorrow
You’ve heard that AI is changing the equipment business. Here’s the part most dealers are missing: It’s not changing what you buy and sell — it’s changing how well you can research, prepare, and communicate before you ever pick up the phone. In this live, 45-minute session, Troy Harrison — “The Sales Navigator” — will show you two specific tools he uses and recommends, and exactly how to put them to work in your day.
1) Perplexity is your research engine. Forget piecing together a buyer’s or seller’s situation across a dozen browser tabs. Perplexity pulls current, sourced information fast — a company’s operation, what they run, regional market conditions, recent news, who’s buying and who’s selling. You’ll go into every conversation knowing more about the other side’s world than they expect you to. In a business built on relationships and trust, that’s not a small edge.
2) Claude is your thinking partner. Need to write a listing that actually sells the machine? Sharpen a pitch to a specific buyer? Draft an outreach or follow-up that sounds like a human wrote it, not a robot? Generate the right questions to figure out what a prospect really needs? Claude handles the heavy lifting on content, ideation, and messaging so you can spend your time doing deals, not writing about them.
Together, these two tools fix the two places most dealers leave money on the table: showing up underprepared and communicating generically.
And here’s what makes this session different: Troy will keep the slides to a minimum and spend most of the time live — screen up, tools open, working real examples with the room, with your questions and your actual deals steering where it goes. Bring a buyer, a seller, or a machine you’re trying to move, and Troy will run it in real time.
Real tools. Real deals. Real show-and-tell. You'll walk out with:
- A repeatable research process using Perplexity, ready to use tomorrow.
- Practical Claude prompts for listings, messaging, and questions.
- A workflow that takes minutes, not hours.
If you sell equipment for a living, this is 45 minutes that will change how you spend your prep time.
Troy Harrison is a world-renowned sales speaker, trainer, consultant, and coach. As a speaker, he presents programs that audiences remember and contain immediately applicable lessons and tools that can be used the next day to make more sales. His training programs will help you sell more, build stronger customer relationships, achieve higher profits, and accelerate your company’s growth. As a consultant, he can help you build a stronger sales force, make better hires, reduce sales turnover, and build customer loyalty. His coaching programs will help you build a strong, profitable, high-growth sales force.
SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
Wrigleyville Cornerstone Sponsor — $2,500
- Logo prominently featured on all event emails, event page and onsite signage
- 1/2 page ad in meeting program
- Recognition by Executive Director Dave Gordon at event
- Opportunity to distribute marketing materials to event attendees
Formula 1 Grid Partner - $2,000
- Logo featured on all event emails, event page and onsite signage
- 1/4 page ad in meeting program
- Recognition by Executive Director Dave Gordon at event
Chicago Skyline Partner - $1,500
- Logo featured on all event emails, event page and onsite signage
- Recognition by Executive Director Dave Gordon at event
COME EARLY FOR A ROUND OF GOLF
Thursday, Sept. 11 – 8:30 a.m.
Lions Municipal Golf Course – just two miles from the Fairmont Austin.
Plan to arrive in Austin Wednesday, Sept. 10 if you want to golf.
Availability is Limited!
You must email David Gordon at david@iedagroup.com or call 708-269-3499.
LIVE MUSIC THURSDAY NIGHT
Our Thursday Welcome Party features reception musical entertainment by Thursday night’s opening reception musical entertainment: Sister Golden Hair!
This female cover band based in Central Texas pays tribute to the harmony-rich hit songs of the ’60s and ’70s.
Costs & Clubs
- Green Fee: $60 per person
- Club Rentals (limited availability): $55 for premium or $25 for Tour Edge. (We recommend bringing your own.)
- You will pay individually onsite at the course –– your spot will be guaranteed by IEDA. No-shows will be billed after the meeting.
You’re Going to Love This Course
Lions Municipal Golf Course has long been one of the city’s most popular courses. In 1924, the Lions Club opened Lions Municipal, the first public golf course in the city. The group leased part of the University of Texas Brackenridge tract and converted the property into a nine-hole facility. The course was later expanded to 18 holes. The course retained the name “Lions Municipal” or “Muny” after the transfer of the lease to the city in 1936.
Lions has hosted many notable golfers, including Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Sandra Haynie, Tom Kite, and Ben Crenshaw. Lions also hosts Texas’ oldest amateur tournament, the Firecracker Open.
Lions was selected by the Texas Golf Hall of Fame and added to the Texas Registry of Historic Golf Courses. Lions is also listed on the Registration of National Historical Places by the National Park Service. The course is recognized as one of the first courses in the South to desegregate prior to the Supreme Court decision in Brown V. Board of Education in 1954.
While “Muny” has changed over the years, it remains a quality test to Austin’s most loyal golf patrons.