Longtime NADA show organizer Steve Pitts' last show

TYSONS, Va. — The National Automobile Dealers Association started holding an annual convention and trade show 104 years ago. Steve Pitt has been in charge of nearly half of them.

The 2022 NADA Show, No. 48 for Pitt, marks the end of his run as the senior vice president of conventions and expositions prepares to retire in April at age 76.

Pitt, an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam, came to NADA from the hotel industry in 1974. He was working for ITT Sheraton's national sales office in Washington when Frank McCarthy, early in his three-decade tenure as NADA's chief, invited him to a meeting.

Pitt went, thinking NADA might throw some business his way, but to his surprise, was asked if he'd be interested in working for the group. He said no twice before ultimately deciding to give it try.

"I was intrigued," Pitt said in an interview last month. "I had never worked for a trade association before."

Pitt's successor is Melissa Wolpert, NADA's vice president of meetings, conventions and expositions, who has been with the group since 2008. She'll take over a department with more than a dozen full-time staffers.

Over the decades, Pitt and his team booked and stage-managed former U.S. presidents, corporate CEOs and other celebrities who addressed the convention. Here are some of the memories that stand out to him.

Pitt says the keynote speaker he admired most was Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister, who spoke in New Orleans in 1993.

"I was so impressed with how she handled all those old curmudgeons in Britain," Pitt said. "I don't usually get nervous, but I was more nervous meeting her than with any president."

Roger Smith, chairman of General Motors from 1981 to 1990, addressed the 1988 NADA convention in San Francisco. Pitt remembers Smith, who died in 2007, as unpretentious, especially by GM corporate standards, which would have had high-ranking executives traveling with an entourage.

"Nice guy," Pitt said. "I had a meeting with him at the Masonic Temple, on top of Nob Hill. He was the nicest guy. It was just him, and only his driver — and GM didn't do things that way."

On the other hand, a speaker who drove Pitt to distraction was Ross Perot. That was in 1994, also in San Francisco, two years after Perot's first third-party campaign for president. Pitt said Perot, the Electronic Data Systems founder who became a gadfly GM board member after the automaker bought his company in 1984, skipped all preparation and waited until beyond the last second to share some slides he wanted projected during his speech.

And then, the speech consisted of Perot tooting his own horn, about his role in staging a 1979 mission to rescue two EDS employees imprisoned in Iran.

"Really nothing to do with the auto industry," Pitt said.

Lee Iacocca, CEO of Chrysler Corp. from 1978 to 1992, addressed the 1990 convention in Las Vegas at the culmination of Ron Tonkin's year as NADA's president. Pitt remembers the two men going head-to-head at an official dinner.

"One of the coolest things I experienced was meeting the top executives, like Lee Iacocca," Pitt said. "We had a dinner in Las Vegas, in this restaurant that was shaped like a flying saucer." Tonkin, a dealer based in Portland, Ore., who died in 2014, was there, too.

Tonkin was known for saying dealers should be able to carry any brands they want, arguing that automakers should fight each other for "shelf space" at dealerships, like food companies vie for favorable placement in grocery stores.

Iacocca, who died in 2019, regarded that kind of talk as disloyal. At the dinner, as the two men argued, Pitt said, "I began to worry they were going to throw us out."

Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton spoke together in New Orleans in 2009. It was the first time the convention returned to the city after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and that helped persuade the former presidents to participate.

Pitt recalls that the two men from opposite sides of the political aisle led charitable efforts to help the New Orleans region recover, efforts NADA also has pursued.

"The first George Bush and Bill Clinton — they were buddies at the time — started the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund after Katrina," Pitt said.

In 2008, the NADA Charitable Foundation made a $400,000 contribution to the Brees Dream Foundation. The foundation was started by New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and his wife, Brittany, to help rebuild the athletic fields at the city's Lusher Charter School.

Pitt said the association continues to provide support. He said he takes a lot of pride in the lasting effect of NADA's charitable efforts in many locations, but especially New Orleans. He said it was his favorite convention city for other, professional reasons as well.

"I really like New Orleans because it's a smaller town, the venues are closer together, it's friendlier," he said. "They developed the convention center well, and we get all the room we need."