#2 | January 20, 2021 | View PDF of Full Issue | Subscribe
In This Issue

  • PPP Reopens Application Portal with $284 Billion in Funding
  • New WANADA Membership Portal Opens to All Members
  • ADEI Welcomes New Class of Aspiring Technicians
  • Vaccine Rollout Program Ramping Up Across Region
  • Get Up to Speed on Latest Laws and Regulations at NADA Show 2021
Following an initial rollout last week that prioritized community lenders and small businesses in underserved communities, the Small Business Administration has re-opened the Paycheck Protection Program to a wide swath of lenders and applicants.

Both first-time applicants and prior participants from the 2020 version of the PPP can apply for additional funding, after $284 billion was added to the program in the federal relief bill that was signed by outgoing president Donald Trump back in December. Interested applicants may find a qualified SBA 7(a) Lender by using the Lender Match Tool.

With the program back in operation, the SBA has also issued a wealth of guidance to help participants better understand the program and its eligibility requirements. Of note, the SBA has updated their calculation guide for determining how much loan forgiveness a specific business is eligible for, and released an application form specifically for businesses who previously received PPP funds in 2020. The SBA has also updated their loan forgiveness forms to comply with the slightly modified terms of the replenished program. Read More
Save the Date
News to Us
Over the past year, WANADA has upgraded a number of member-facing systems to be more efficient. One of our new systems is a membership portal called Member Leap (Vieth Consulting).

A welcome letter with registration information was emailed to WANADA members last week, so please check your junk mail if it is not in your inbox and mark "safe to be delivered to inbox" for future communications. Once you have activated your account on the new portal, you may access the login page by clicking here, or by using the member login option on the WANADA website.

On the new portal, WANADA members can access a number of services, and customize their membership in several ways, including the following:

  • Make changes online to membership information. Certain changes will be approved by the Board of Directors, per the association’s bylaws.
  • Pay monthly member assessments online, under the billing tab
  • View the association's event calendar
  • Access resources through document library, such as R.L. Polk reports, seminar materials, and more

Please contact Kathy Teich at kt@wanada.org should you have any issues or questions with the Member Leap portal. 
WANADA’s Automobile Dealer Education Institute is preparing to welcome a new class of students this semester, as the program’s educators continue to educate and train the next generation of auto technicians in a safe, socially-distant, and protected way.

WANADA would like to thank the numerous dealers who have supported the program, through sponsoring students and also by making charitable contributions to ADEI, which is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Donations to ADEI are tax-deductible, and they help defray some of the association’s costs associated with hosting the program, including providing students with a high-quality set of tools, along with books and other educational materials that help participants thrive and grow into high-quality, reliable service technicians.

Thanks to the great support from the Montgomery County Automotive Trades Foundation and Northern Virginia Community College, ADEI students have still been able to receive in-person training at the auto technician centers on the campuses of NOVA and Montgomery College.

Dealership demand for ADEI students continues to be strong, and there was actually a waitlist for participants this coming semester. As a result, some dealerships that were not sponsoring students previously have since joined or re-joined the program in prior months. None of this would have been possible without the great support of our dealership members, our supporting educational institutions and, of course, the participating students themselves, who continue to work hard even in highly challenging circumstances.

To adapt to those health and safety challenges, ADEI students are being trained in smaller groups, with more spacing in the garages than in pre-pandemic times, with a greater emphasis on virtual learning in their non-automotive academic studies. But importantly for their vocational training, and for the students’ ability to have the necessary education to be able to establish a full-time career at a dealership, they are still getting the same amount of in-person technician training that students received prior to the pandemic, just with a far greater emphasis on social distancing, mask-wearing, and surface cleaning.

The association would also like to thank Erik Falk and Billy Painter, WANADA’s in-house recruitment advisors in Maryland and Northern Virginia, along with Steve Boden from the Montgomery County ATF, for helping the program continue even as many in-person activities have remained shuttered across the region.

For more information on ADEI, please visit adei-programs.org. You may also contact Joe Koch, WANADA’s Vice President of Operations, at jk@wanada.org for more information on ADEI and the various ways you can support this immensely valuable program.
Slowly but surely, COVID-19 vaccinations are going into more and more arms across the country, and governments across the region are gradually expanding access to a wider range of residents. You can visit the vaccination resource pages in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia for the latest information.

Currently, all three jurisdictions are in their own versions of phase 1B. In the District and Virginia, this means that residents over the age of 65 are eligible to be vaccinated, along with adults with underlying medical conditions, and a broader classification of frontline essential workers. Most of the same groups are currently eligible to register for vaccination in Maryland, though the broad age cutoff is currently at 75 years old. Gov. Larry Hogan said last week that adults aged 65 to 75 will be able to register as soon as next Monday.

Essential transportation workers, which will include retail and service staff at auto dealerships, are classified as being part of phase 1C in Virginia, and phase 2 in Maryland. It is WANADA’s understanding that, under Virginia’s phase 1C, employers will be able to secure vaccination vouchers on behalf of their employees, which can help streamline the process for workers who may reside outside of the county (or state) in which they are employed. Read More
With today’s inauguration of President Biden and unified Democratic control in Congress, Americans are entering a new legal and regulatory environment than that of the past four years (if not, in many respects, longer). With that in mind, NADA’s all-virtual 2021 Show will feature a number of valuable webinars to help dealers anticipate what this change in leadership might mean for their businesses.

Over three days, from February 9 through 11, NADA’s team of regulatory experts will cover a number of regulatory and legal matters of interest to dealers, from a Capitol Hill update, to guidance around online-sales compliance, key tax issues, and much more. Click here to view a synopsis of some of the show’s regulatory seminars.

These sessions are just some of the more than 60 informational webinars that will comprise the NADA Show, and which participants can either join live or view on-demand at a later date. All of the OEM franchise updates, industry exhibitors, and networking opportunities of past NADA shows will still be key components of the 2021 event – only they’ll be online and more accessible to more attendees than ever before.

For more information on all that the NADA Show has to offer, please click here. To register for the event, and to learn more about the 2021 show’s reduced pricing options, please visit this link. WANADA is proud to support our friends at NADA, and we encourage all our dealer members to take part in this educational and informative three-day event.
The WANADA Bulletin is Sponsored by the Following Kindred-Line Members: