| |
It’s a real honor to enter the presidency of the IAAM and to follow in the
tradition of the many dedicated men and women who have held this post over
the years. I’m especially honored to be following immediately behind Larry
Perkins and David Ross.
David’s presidential theme, “Making a Difference,” struck an especially
poignant note as IAAM led the nation in developing best practices for
mass-care shelters in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
This past year, Larry encouraged us all to embrace
the power of technology as he crisscrossed the United States and visited
Australia, Europe and Asia to promote the international growth of IAAM. In
an attempt to continue the service ethic implicit to David’s presidency and
the international reach of Larry’s term, I’ve chosen as my theme “Making a
World of Difference.” This year we’ll be reexamining several of the basic
tenets of IAAM to determine how we might better define our place on a
worldwide stage. Does our mission need to be updated to reflect a global
constituency? How do we best define membership? What benefits and services
should we be providing to our members? And finally, how can we best
structure the governance of IAAM to meet global challenges and rise to
global opportunities? We’re calling this effort the Mission, Membership and
Governance Initiative, or MMGI for short. Over the course of the next two
years — during both my term and that of first vice president Robyn Williams,
CFE —virtually every council, committee and task force of the IAAM will be
touched by this process.
Twenty-four members of IAAM, representing a
worldwide cross section of our industry, will convene at IAAM headquarters
in Coppell, Texas, in August. Association Laboratory Inc. of Chicago (www.associationlaboratory.com)
and its president, Dean West, have been engaged to provide research and
assistance to our process. The assembled delegation will be asked to develop
specific recommendations for consideration by the IAAM Board of Directors at
their December meeting.
Any changes adopted by the Board in December will be
taken to each of the District Meetings occurring from January through May of
2008 for thorough discussion and debate. IAAM members will vote on these
recommendations at the business meeting of the 2008 Annual Conference &
Trade Show in Anaheim. Any and all changes approved by the membership will
be implemented during Robyn’s term.
The MMGI will be just one of many challenges we’ll face
this year as we strive to remain the acknowledged worldwide leader in the
public assembly industry. We have the continuing task of developing new
practices and training programs to ensure the safety of our public assembly
facilities. Our latest effort in this regard will be a new publication,
Venue Safety & Security, jointly published by IAAM, IAFE, IFEA, OABA and
PRISM Media Group, debuting this month. We’ll be continuing our cooperation
with the American Red Cross to implement the plans IAAM has already
developed for mass-care shelters so that we’re ready when disaster strikes.
And we have a wealth of knowledge to share through our professional
development schools and our ever-expanding distance learning programs.
During his term as IAAM president, Larry Perkins
appointed a Chapters Task Force to promote the growth of IAAM Chapter
Meetings around the world. As a result, the number of Chapter Meetings
mushroomed. This year, we have taken action to convert the temporary
Chapters Task Force into a standing committee, The Chapters Committee, under
the Industry Affairs Council. The ambitious goal for this new committee will
be to host at least 30 Chapter Meetings over the course of the coming year.
Chapter Meetings offer IAAM members, as well as
nonmembers, the opportunity to participate in an IAAM gathering at the local
level, where they can learn about new practices and procedures while
networking with peers from the immediate area — and they can do all of this
in less than a day, for little or no expense. In the long term, successful
Chapter Meetings may prove to be our most effective means of recruiting new
IAAM members worldwide.
As you can
see, we have much to do. I invite each and every IAAM member to participate
in the ongoing adventure that is IAAM. Jack Welch, former CEO of General
Electric, had an expression for total involvement. He called it “every brain
in the game.” IAAM needs you and your brain. So come on and join the fun. It
is going to be one heck of a year!
|
|
Steven L.
Peters, CFE
IAAM President
|
|
|
Back to Facility Manager
Contents
