About AHTD

The Association for High Technology Distribution was founded in 1985. A handful of distributors of high tech automation products were members of a broad association of electrical distributors and felt that their businesses were evolving into part of a new, quickly-growing niche that was providing application and engineering knowledge with industrial automation products to customers in the form of complete automation solutions. These advanced services were quickly identified as powerful differentiators but their value was directly reliant on remaining on the cutting edge of technology so these companies banded together to create a knowledge pool of high tech distributors. AHTD was born in 1985 and experienced unprecedented
growth during its first fourteen years of existence.

However, in 1999, several founding and long-time members felt the association had grown too fast and had begun to dilute its traditionally high-tech knowledge pool. In a bold action, unheard of for any trade association, AHTD made considerable changes to their Membership Eligibility Requirements to more strictly define a high tech distributor (which would now be referred to as an Automation Solutions Provider or ASP). AHTD then required every member to reapply to the association under the new requirements as a means of ensuring that AHTD would only consist of the most high tech companies in the industry. The association trimmed its roster by over 10% and has maintained those same stringent requirements to the present day.