ReMA Leaders Engage in Successful ReMA2026 Annual Pre-Con Event

During the week of August 11, ReMA Chair Colin Kelly, Chair-elect Andy Golding, and Convention Committee chair Andrew Cohen, along with several ReMA staff, traveled to Las Vegas for the annual pre-con meeting to plan for the upcoming ReMA2026 convention.

Scheduled for April 13-16, 2026, at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, ReMA2026 promises to deliver strong content and networking opportunities to attendees.

At the pre-con, the group discussed expanding the convention’s spotlights to focus on key issues impacting the recycled materials industry including trade, transportation and logistics, packaging and the residential stream, recycled materials and manufacturing, and market analysis and trends. The team also spent time working to maximize networking opportunities throughout the convention.

“It was great to get everyone back in one room to discuss the challenges and successes of ReMA2025 in San Diego and build out those takeaways into what we want to achieve in Las Vegas next year,” Cohen said.

Kelly is excited to take the momentum from ReMA2025’s keynote speaker Jesse Cole into the planning process for ReMA2026.

“During his speech at ReMA2025, Cole’s big takeaway to us was, ‘Swing hard, you might get a hit.’ That’s what we’re working on. We’re figuring out the friction points in the industry and in our markets and discussing how to go forward. We’re going to be swinging hard and hopefully we’ll get more than a hit—we’ll get a home run.”

ReMA’s executive team and leaders are working to design a convention that not only provides a unique experience for attendees, but also delivers impactful educational content and insights.

“We looked at venues for our closing night party and late-night party and those events are important to the success of our convention. We’ve raised the bar on the experience of the convention over the last few years,” Kelly said. “But just as important in 2026 will be to cover what’s going on in the industry. Andy and the team and homing in on the educational content, it’s exciting to see everything come together.”

Cohen is looking forward to building on the attendee experience since last year’s convention.

“We’ve grown different aspects of our convention depending on our attendees’ needs,” he said. “It provides equipment experience, operational experience, marketing experience, networking experience, education experience, political and lobbying experience, safety experience—the list goes on. Our convention is designed so that there’s something there for you no matter what part of the industry you work in.

ReMA leadership wants to ensure that attendees leave Las Vegas and return to their operations with tools and knowledge that will help drive their businesses forward.

“The networking is truly a key part of the ReMA convention experience,” Kelly said. “It’s where industry leaders, manufacturers, processors, brokers, equipment providers, and more come together to learn from one another, build connections, and work together to push the industry forward.”

Photo Courtesy of Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons