> ERA Announces the Recipients of the 2026 Mark Motsinger White Pin Internships
ERA PRESS RELEASE
April 1, 2026
Contact: Clare Kluck / Communications Director / ckluck@era.org
ERA Announces the Recipients of the 2026 Mark Motsinger White Pin Internships
ERA announces six internships for the summer of 2026
The ERA White Pin group is proud to announce the recipients of the 2026 Mark Motsinger White Pin Internships:
- Maya Gabbi, Chapman University — Ion Associates (Texas)
- Olivia Burchstead, University of Kansas — Cover 2 Sales (Maryland)
- Taedra Tsecaris, University of Connecticut — John E. Boeing Co. (New Hampshire)
- Mary Coakley, University of Massachusetts at Amherst — Coakley Boyd & Abbett (Massachusetts)
- Erik Timbo, University of St. Thomas — Cain-Forlaw Co. (Illinois)
- Gabrielle Tully, Milwaukee School of Engineering — Brainard-Nielsen Marketing (Illinois)
This is the fifth year that the ERA White Pin Group and ERA National have partnered to award internships to manufacturers’ representative firms in various regions of North America to help hire and onboard college students as interns during the summer or academic year.
“We are excited to welcome this cohort of summer 2026 interns and congratulate the rep firm recipients,” said Kingsland Coombs, CPMR, CSP, senior vice president at large for the ERA Executive Committee and chair of the White Pin Group. “These interns will bring a wealth of new ideas and raw potential that will spark innovation within our rep firms. I look forward to seeing the growth and valuable insights that will come from this collaboration.”
“We are thrilled to be awarding six internships for the summer of 2026,” stated Lori Bruno, CPMR, senior vice president of education for the ERA Executive Committee. “It’s rewarding to see our mission of advocating for the manufacturers’ representative role and cultivating young talent come to life. We look forward to building on this momentum and becoming even stronger!”
ERA launched the Mark Motsinger White Pin Internship program in 2022 as a way to help the rep community introduce the rep model to college students and attract, hire and retain young people to keep the electronics industry fresh and relevant. The program allows rising college juniors or seniors to work for a manufacturers’ representative firm over the summer months to gain a better understanding and hands-on experience of the electronic components industry.
The internship program was named after Mark Motsinger, president of Wallace Electronic Sales, who served as executive director of the ERA White Pin group for more than 16 years. Motsinger helped to define the educational role of the White Pin group and helped promote the hiring and onboarding of new college graduates into our industry.
Please join ERA in congratulating all the rep companies and interns!
Read more information about the ERA Mark Motsinger White Pin Internship program.
About ERA
The 91-year-old Electronics Representatives Association (ERA) is the international trade organization for professional field sales companies in the global electronics industries, manufacturers who go to market through representative firms and global distributors. It is the mission of ERA to support the professional field sales function through programs and activities that educate, inform and advocate for manufacturers’ representatives, the principals they represent and the distributors who are reps’ partners in local territories. For more information about ERA, visit era.org.
The Electronics Representatives Association (ERA) announces that Tobi Cornell, CPMR, President of Kruvand Associates, has joined the ERA Executive Committee as the Senior Vice President of Membership.
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> Congratulations to all the award winners from the 2026 ERA Conference!
> ERA is proud to announce the 2025 Cameron English Chapters of the Year award recipients! The awards were based on four categories: Education, Networking, Membership and Special Projects.
> The EDS Summit in Las Vegas is about 10 weeks away!
> We’ll see many of you in Austin in a few days for the 2026 ERA Conference!
> The 
> The next ERA LIVE will take place Tues., Jan. 13 at 4:00 pm ET, featuring Dennis Reed, senior analyst at Edgewater Research. Reed will give a recap of 2025 and present his outlook for 2026, based on electronics components market data and ERA member survey results from 2025. No registration required. See you there! 
INDUSTRY SURVEY RESULTS
> ERA debuts its 2026 Media Kit, offering companies multiple digital and print advertising opportunities. Showcase your company’s message in front of 4,000+ industry professionals! Non-members are encouraged to advertise. ERA members receive advertising discounts! 
‘Tis the season for chapter events! Our active regional chapters around the U.S. host many wonderful networking/charity events over the holiday season. We encourage you to attend a local ERA chapter event soon! 
ERA Announces New CEO Edward Smith
> Scaling up at ERA
Ed Smith, CEO of ERA
I would like to thank you all in advance for attending the annual 2026 ERA Conference, and for Conference Chair Perry Thornton and Conference Vice Chair Julie Carr and all the committee members who have worked many hours to make this an industry-leading event.
We will have more than 650 attendees and a new home at the Hilton Austin in downtown Austin. This is a record crowd, and this shows that people find value in the three days in Austin. Our goal is to have speakers and breakout sessions that help and guide you in your day-today duties. I appreciate the support of all our sponsors which enables us to have a world-class event in a world-class venue. This was my first year putting this event together and I was impressed by the ERA staff of Kate, Karin, Clare, Ama, Natalie and Susan and the work they do to organize this great event.
The main stage will have fantastic speakers talking about reaching the unreachable and about human connection in a digital world. They will speak about the fast pace of a supply chain in the new world politics (just keeping up with the tariffs last year was dizzying). We will have someone speak about how to collaborate when we live in a world where AI is being used to a greater degree. I could not be more excited to see how the main stage inspires and motivates Conference attendees.
The breakout sessions will dig deeper into topics of importance to reps, manufacturers and distributors and will be geared towards tactical and practical actions and takeaways. AI will be featured in multiple sessions, which will highlight some available tools and how to use them in practical applications. We will have sessions on relationships and some deeper discussions on communication. We will have some conversations about CMMC and how to comply with the flow downs. We will have a market trend update that will feature new data on lead times and sales, and I will also give an ERA update.
There are many other things that ERA is working on that will be rolled out later this year. We are working to provide our members a new data resource that reports all parts shipped in Mexico, Canada and the U.S. sorted by HTS code. We are also working on some data about the value of rep firms with real-life examples and numbers to support our position.
We are busy at ERA, but never too busy to help support local chapter efforts and events. If you need our help, just reach out to me or one of the ERA staff. I have attended quite a few chapter events and have been impressed with the enthusiasm and work put into each of the events. Thank you and keep up the great work!