Some special achievements I am proud of:
One of my greatest moments was after attending almost a year of WBA Sr. Officer meetings, all more than 3 hours from my office, we held a vote that ended in a tie. The WBA President said I would be the tie-breaking vote. To which I replied that the position I held as Advisor to the Sr. Officers did not entitle me to a vote and that only the Associate Vice President could vote. This was a major surprise to all. They were shocked that I did all this travel at my own expense when I could not even cast a vote. After that meeting, the rest of the Officers championed a change to our by-laws to give both Associates on the Sr. Officer team a vote. This by-law change was passed in 2012, as I ended my term as Associate Vice President at WBA.
As Chairman of the WBA Associate Adviosry Council,
(Note: Wisconsin Builders Association only has the Associate Advisory Council which operates under its own by-laws and elects its own leadership. We do not have an Associate Committee)
At my local:
After hearing talk of a membership card at NAHB Membership meetings, I took the idea, along with a completely designed card for each of them to our local Membership Committee. This card was then used at our local promoting the 3-in-1 membership, their ID number, and relevant Association information.
As Government Affairs Chair at our local, I wanted to elevate our annual PAC Auction to an event that members would attend in greater numbers. Instead of the standard silent auction items that only brought us money from the winning bidders, I wanted a way to involve all that attended. I developed a hammer toss made from foam rubber, a "know your elected officials" game that required matching the name and office to a photo, and a push up contest between builders. In addition, our live auction segment included gift cards in sealed envelopes ranging from $25 to $250. We auctioned them all off before giving anyone the card they purchased, so you did not know which one you bought. For anyone that has done an auction, it is hard to get more than the face value otherwise. This event is still one of the leading PAC fundraisers in history and more than doubled attendance and money raised. I won a recognition award from the WBA PAC for these efforts.
One of my greatest moments was after attending almost a year of WBA Sr. Officer meetings, all more than 3 hours from my office, we held a vote that ended in a tie. The WBA President said I would be the tie-breaking vote. To which I replied that the position I held as Advisor to the Sr. Officers did not entitle me to a vote and that only the Associate Vice President could vote. This was a major surprise to all. They were shocked that I did all this travel at my own expense when I could not even cast a vote. After that meeting, the rest of the Officers championed a change to our by-laws to give both Associates on the Sr. Officer team a vote. This by-law change was passed in 2012, as I ended my term as Associate Vice President at WBA.
As Chairman of the WBA Associate Adviosry Council,
- I developed our WBA Partners program that copied the NAHB Associate's Premier Partners Program. Budget cuts on the state level were severely impacting all committee/council budgets and we were threatened with having no money to carry out programs and services for the Associates.
- Also, in this position the WBA Associates hosted their first CGA course and contributed money to lower the costs for the class.
- We also hosted out first Associate networking event at the WBA Annual Convention. This event welcomed all Associates in town for the Annual Convention and all current and past Officers from WBA. To help with this event, I created a "Networking Guide" for Associates using the best of articles from NAHB.org and around the Federation.
- Another accomplishment as Chairman of this Associates Council was to identify items that were being charged to the Associate Advisory Council budget that were depleting the Councils budget. After working with other Committees, we were able to allocate the expenses to the appropriate budget line and freeing up money for the Associate Council to use for its own programs and awards.
- Developed the subcommittee approach for the Associates Council and put the first and second vice chairs in charge of those subcommittees to get them involved in each subcommittee as they worked their way up to Chairman.
(Note: Wisconsin Builders Association only has the Associate Advisory Council which operates under its own by-laws and elects its own leadership. We do not have an Associate Committee)
At my local:
After hearing talk of a membership card at NAHB Membership meetings, I took the idea, along with a completely designed card for each of them to our local Membership Committee. This card was then used at our local promoting the 3-in-1 membership, their ID number, and relevant Association information.
As Government Affairs Chair at our local, I wanted to elevate our annual PAC Auction to an event that members would attend in greater numbers. Instead of the standard silent auction items that only brought us money from the winning bidders, I wanted a way to involve all that attended. I developed a hammer toss made from foam rubber, a "know your elected officials" game that required matching the name and office to a photo, and a push up contest between builders. In addition, our live auction segment included gift cards in sealed envelopes ranging from $25 to $250. We auctioned them all off before giving anyone the card they purchased, so you did not know which one you bought. For anyone that has done an auction, it is hard to get more than the face value otherwise. This event is still one of the leading PAC fundraisers in history and more than doubled attendance and money raised. I won a recognition award from the WBA PAC for these efforts.