Associations International Wins 3rd Consecutive Workplace Honor, Welcomes New Client

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 23, 2015) – For the third year in a row, Associations International (AI) has been named one of Kentucky’s Best Places to Work by The Kentucky Society for Human Resource Management and The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in the small sized employer category.
Formerly a division of Host Communications and IMG, AI has been helping professional and trade associations promote their missions and grow their memberships for more than 40 years. Just in the past four years, AI has doubled the number of its association clients and experienced 43% growth in the number of its employees. Today AI employs nearly 120 association professionals at its Lexington-based headquarters. It is now the seventh-largest association management company in the world.

“In our third consecutive year of winning this award, we are honored to be included in Kentucky’s Best Places to Work,” said Keith Howard, AI vice president of business development. “This award not only is a reflection of the dedicated talent that lies within our company, but the level of commitment we show to our client associations.

“Through our 10 clients, whose members collectively have presence in 120 countries internationally, we represent approximately 100,000 members and regularly expose these industries to central KY and the Bluegrass,” he added. “Lexington is very quickly becoming a hub for associations headquartered outside of Washington DC.”

Most recently, the Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT) selected AI as its new association management company. Founded in 1993, APDT is a professional organization of individual trainers who are committed to becoming better trainers through education. Today, with almost 6,000 members, APDT is the largest association of dog trainers in the world. Each quarter, APDT publishes the award-winning magazine The APDT Chronicle of the Dog.

Members of the APDT helped launch the independent APDT Foundation which raises money to help fund critical research into dog training and behavior that will have practical uses for dog trainers and behavior consultants.

Leading APDT from its new headquarters in Lexington, Ky. is executive director David M. Feldner, CAE. Feldner has 18 years of association and non-profit management experience with expertise in leadership development, board governance, strategic planning, innovation, and membership growth.

Feldner is a Certified Association Executive (CAE) and Past Chair of the Wisconsin Society of Association Executives. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Marketing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee – School of Business Administration.