This article - and one more next month, and then I promise no more AMOA stories. Hopefully, you've enjoyed my version of an AMOA mini-series. This month addresses the period I spent as an officer of the AMOA and my year as president in 1995-1996.
If you're going to be president of the AMOA beginning in the fall of 1995, you find out your fate at the mid-year winter board meeting in February 1992. You are elected to the officer position of secretary, and then it's a single-year accession to treasurer, first vice president, and then president. All other AMOA elections have multiple candidates. But once you're in the "chairs," it's yours to lose. You're the only official candidate for the officer positions each of the next three years. It has happened that an officer doesn't make it through to becoming president, but it is a rare exception.
I remember my mid-year board meeting in Florida in 1992. I was as nervous as a cat at a wheelchair convention. I really wanted to become the next secretary of the AMOA. I had worked hard in the association, but so had many others. Luckily for me, I was elected secretary at that meeting. I knew I was part of the AMOA board for another 10 years with that election.
The president I was lucky enough to follow was Tami Norberg-Paulsen. She has a warm personality that takes over a room when she enters. She was in an industry of men, and the men were at the disadvantage. The officers of the day when I was president were First Vice President Jerry Derrick, Treasurer Don Hesch, and Secretary Jim Stansfield. Each person brought unique strengths to the association, and that year we needed all the strength we could muster.
I was asked once what was the highlight and the low point of my AMOA experience. That answer is now clear to me. I'm not totally sure how we got the ball rolling, but my counter-part Rick Kirby (then-president of the AAMA) and I were challenged to bring both associations together. It was a noble experience. We were not the first to attempt this, and we will most definitely not be the last. Hopefully the future presidents will enjoy more success than Rick and I did. Having said that, our combined team of eight, four from each association, made a tremendous amount of headway toward our goal.
After months of joint meetings, we ended up with five simple proposals: bring up to six manufacturers to sit on the AMOA Board of Directors; through attrition reduce the AMOA Board size from 48 to 21 members; change the association's name to Amusement and Music Owners (as opposed to "Operators") Association; reduce the size of the Executive Committee to seven members; finally, reduce the number of standing committees to nine in total. This was our first step toward consolidation. It seemed straightforward enough to me. Our 12-member AMOA Executive Committee approved the proposals, a majority of the AMOA Board approved the same proposals, and the next step was to propose it to the general membership meeting for final approval. This particular meeting occurred on a Saturday morning in the fall of 1996 in Atlanta at that year's AMOA Expo.
We often wondered how to drive attendance at the AMOA General Membership meeting. Usually, very few would show up at these "rubber-stamped" standard policy review and committee reports type of meetings. It would generally be a rehashed board meeting, attended by most of the board and a few family members of incoming officers. Free breakfast helped attendance, but still not to the level we had hoped. Well, in 1996 they were stealing chairs off the convention floor to find people places to sit. That's all you needed to do: Propose to blow up the association, change the name that had been in place for 50 years, and boy - do the members come out in force. Welcome to the "Ambush in Atlanta."
We had a wonderful presentation. The ideas we presented were pretty far outside the generally accepted box. Actually, on the rare occasion we turned around, we couldn't even see the box anymore. We were on a mission. The first motion was presented, then questions, more questions, lots of question from people I hadn't planned on, and then a membership vote defeating the proposal, 52% to 48%. I knew my political boat was taking on water that morning, but we still had to bring up the other proposals. The first vote was the closest one. The defeats got worse as the morning went on. Chalk up three more defeats after lengthy debate. It was a long meeting run with a semblance of order; that is, there were no uncontrollable outbursts or cursing (at least that I heard from the podium). We all left that meeting with our heads hanging low in defeat. But in retrospect, what a great moment. My AMOA low point, you say? Absolutely not. That was the high point of my AMOA career. We had taken an idea, brought a method to our goal, made it all the way to the general membership meeting, and up to that point had brought the entire board along with us. All members of the AMOA and AAMA Boards were very involved, either as supporters or members passionately defending their traditions. Not one of our 48 board members didn't feel strongly one way or the other on each of these three issues. I suspect the same was true for the other side as well. The fact that we brought the idea that far, further than anyone previously had, is something I reflect back on with great pride. Someday (sooner rather than later, I hope) the AMOA and AAMA are going to successfully join as one industry association. It is my firm belief that the road to that successful union went through Atlanta in 1996.
The low point? This is clear to me as well. It occurred in the Admirals Club meeting room one afternoon in 1996 at the Chicago O'Hare airport, in a meeting with a principal of Smith-Bucklin, our association management firm at that time. A few others joined me. During my presidential term, the Executive Committee decided to make a change in the position of AMOA Executive Director and sent three of us to deliver the message. What this led too was an eventual, inevitable change from Smith-Bucklin to our current stand-alone management structure that is in place today.
The reason this was a low point for me is at that time, we weren't running our association responsibly. The board had temporarily taken our eye off the ball, spending money we didn't have, and not paying attention to the financial decisions of the day. Just as in any business, poor performance responsibility starts at the top; since that time, the AMOA Board has stepped up, taken responsibility and made the necessary changes. However, then the industry was changing on our guard, and we weren't as in tune or responsive enough to the occurring changes as we should have been. The communication lines from the executive staff to the general board were selective at best. New board members attending their first board meetings quickly knew what questions could be asked and which ones couldn't. With money tight and revenues declining rapidly, AMOA meetings went through a period where there was nothing fun about being an AMOA board member. It was time to reach down and fix this thing.
What has occurred since that time is reading for the AMOA history books. There was a time shortly after my watch when we weren't sure we were going to survive as the association we had all worked so hard for. Today's "new" AMOA is stronger than ever financially, and bursting with pride. The presidents following my term, Jerry Derrick, Don Hesch, Jim Stansfield and Frank Seninsky, have been at the helm during a major association reconstruction and deserve all the credit for outstanding leadership. A supporting board also deserves credit.
The association gods made the job considerably easier when they delivered to us our current executive vice president, Jack Kelleher. Congratulations to the search committee for recognizing his talents during the interview process. His direct approach, no-nonsense explanations of issues, and agenda in harmony with the association are remarkably refreshing.
If there had been a more fragmented board with less committed members and board members who didn't take direct ownership of the association, it could be a different day today. The AMOA could be 400 guys at a Holiday Inn once a year. That's not the case. The association has made the hard decisions and is prospering today. Board meetings are again fun. I shall miss them.
One board member on the fast track told me a few years ago that he was
dropping out of the association because "he didn't want his fingerprints"
on the association, presumably as it imploded. I'm proud that my fingerprints
and footprints can be found in all areas of the AMOA's last 20 years. I
sincerely wish I had the opportunity to go back and do it all over again.