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Ryan Trainer named ISPA president

Veteran lawyer, association exec will lead mattress group

David Perry -- Furniture Today, March 29, 2010

Ryan Trainer

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The International Sleep Products Assn. has appointed eight-year ISPA veteran Ryan Trainer as its president, effective immediately.

Trainer, 53, who has been executive vice president for the bedding industry trade association, succeeds Dick Doyle, who left ISPA last year.

"ISPA will continue to focus on the issues that affect the sleep products industry and maximize the value of our programs to our membership," Trainer said.

He joined ISPA in 2002 after more than 20 years of work in government and private law practice in Washington, where he built a reputation as an advocate for business in public policy debates. Early in his career he worked in the office of the general counsel for the U.S. Commerce Dept.

Since joining ISPA as the group's No. 2 executive and general counsel, he has played a key role in leading ISPA's statistics, legal, consumer product safety and sustainability programs, ISPA officials said.

"Ryan has a thorough understanding of the issues that are critical to the sleep products industry and the skill to navigate the corridors of Washington to assure our voice is heard on matters important to us," said Don Wright, ISPA chairman, and chief marketing officer of Wright of Thomasville. "Our board had a very clear vision that at this time in the evolution of ISPA, we needed a top professional who was a strong executive, an experienced Washington hand and someone who already understood our industry issues. Ryan was the only person we felt combined all of these talents."

Wright said the ISPA board "is going to be more actively involved in setting the strategic direction" for the association, based on feedback from its members. "We are confident Ryan will take that vision and see it through to completion," he said.

A search committee, which considered executives from within the bedding industry as well as external candidates, recommended Trainer.

Trainer said that the federal government "is trying to impose many new costs on business," and said the sleep products industry needs "a strong and unified voice in our nation's capital, which ISPA provides."

He said he worked with ISPA on a number of issues as its outside legal counsel before he joined the association in 2002. "As a result," Trainer continued, "I am familiar with both our history and advocacy in Washington, and what we must do to assure that we have a greater voice and impact for our industry."

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Trainer to lead ISPA

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