The Specialty Advertising Association of Greater New York (SAAGNY) has appointed Megan E. Turcotte, CAE, as its new executive director. Turcotte brings more than 20 years of association leadership experience, with a background in member engagement, governance, strategic operations, partnerships and community building. In the role, she will work with SAAGNY’s board, volunteers, members and industry partners to support the association’s strategic priorities, events, educational programs and member experience.

RUPT (PPAI 826757, Silver), PPAI 100’s No. 60 supplier, has announced the hiring of Rachel Hoskins as vice president of sales and activations.

Hoskins brings more than 14 years of experience across promotional products, apparel and branded merchandise, but her connection to the industry goes back much further. A third-generation promo professional, Hoskins grew up around the business. Her grandfather worked in the industry, followed by both her mother and father.

In her new role, Hoskins will lead sales growth at RUPT while also heading the company’s expanding brand activations division, including a slate of new activation offerings RUPT plans to unveil at The PPAI Expo 2027.

“Mike and I have known Rachel for 14 years, and there is nobody I’d rather have leading this next chapter with us,” says Jason Lucash, CEO and co-founder of RUPT. “She knows this industry inside and out, but more importantly, she knows where it needs to go. She understands relationships, she understands how to create experiences people actually remember and she has the energy to take an idea and turn it into something much bigger.”

HIRSCH (PPAI 221823, Platinum), PPAI 100’s No. 13 supplier, has officially launched Gratigy – a free premium gifting and redemption store platform for distributors.

Gratigy offers a highly flexible and robust store solution that distributors can build and launch in under 10 minutes, according to HIRSCH. Distributors can create tier-level collections based on end user budgets, fully customized branding for your webstore, all without any integration or programming needed.

The platform is built on the HIRSCH suite of technologies and is synced with the supplier’s operations to ensure stock availability is monitored in real time. At launch, Gratigy offers redemption stores, with pop-up and permanent stores slated for a future release.

“We are very excited to be launching Gratigy just in time for the holiday season,” says HIRSCH CEO Paul Hirsch. “Our goal with Gratigy was to create an easy to use, but very powerful and flexible platform for our distributor clients to launch stores that truly embody the branding of their customers.”

SRG (PPAI 230188, Platinum), PPAI 100’s No. 20 supplier, announced that it has taken over sales and distribution of the Kelvin Tools (PPAI 625192, Standard-Base) line of custom-branded promotional products throughout North America.

“We are extremely excited to add Kelvin Tools to the SRG portfolio,” says Merrick Falkenstein, chief revenue officer at SRG. “Kelvin Tools has developed a unique collection of products that combines functionality, innovation and great design. We see significant opportunity for these products within the North American promotional products marketplace, and we believe our distributor network and sales team are ideally positioned to help grow the brand.”

“SRG is an excellent partner for Kelvin Tools as we continue to expand our promotional products business,” adds Neil Wilson, president of Kelvin Tools. “Its knowledge of the North American promotional products market, combined with its sales and distribution capabilities, will give our promotional customers a strong partner and make Kelvin Tools products more accessible to distributors throughout the region.”

PCNA (PPAI 113079, Platinum), PPAI 100’s No. 6 supplier, hosted its fourth annual tree-planting event in partnership with Tree Pittsburgh and The Giving Grove at the Tree Pittsburgh campus in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood. Approximately 50 PCNA employees joined representatives from both organizations to plant trees along the Sycamore Trail near the Giving Grove campus, helping expand educational and natural resources in the area. Participants also toured Tree Pittsburgh’s Heritage Nursery and learned more about local reforestation and community orchard initiatives.

Gold Bond (PPAI 113974, Gold) PPAI 100’s No 50 supplier, announced the launch of an event that will run from September 14 through the end of the year. The Ultimate Fall Rewards Event acknowledges distributor partners for placing qualifying orders of more than 65 Gold Bond products. Qualifying orders of $500 or more in net sales on a single eligible item number earn rewards that can be redeemed through Amazon’s gifting platform.

“Our Ultimate Fall Rewards Event is designed to give even more value back to our distributor partners during one of the busiest selling seasons of the year,” says Mark Godsey, CEO of Gold Bond. “Distributors are already placing these orders for their customers. We wanted to make those orders even more rewarding by giving them the flexibility to choose something they’ll genuinely enjoy.”

Eligible products include the top 65 best-selling products in the Gold Bond catalog. There are more than 200 reward options available for distributors. More information can be found at the Gold Bond Ultimate Fall Event page.