Masonry Magazine March 2002 Page. 29
MASONRY MAGAZINE: Congratulations on being elected to a two- year term as President of the Mason Contractors Association of America. Given the fact that you must commit long hours of service and there is absolutely no pay involved, in fact hardly any expense reimbursement, why did you want to be President of the national association?
First of all, thank you. It is an honor to have been selected by my peers to head the MCAA. I just realized that maybe I got elected because everyone else didn't want to incur the long hours with no pay. Here I thought they felt I would be a good leader. Seriously, I have made my livelihood as a mason contractor which has always been a challenge. Being a mason contractor involves dealing with complex problems such as estimating, staff coordinating manning a job and most important making a profit. Very rarely will you find it boring or routine. We deal to new personalities everyday. We confront different challenges everyday that come from not only the construction side but from government and even lending institutions. Being President gives me the ability to pass along my experiences as a contractor to those just starting out in business and to hopefully to make an impact on the future of the industry.
MASONRY MAGAZINE: How does the association identify member and industry needs?
Primarily through our formal meetings. Our meetings are virtual planning sessions with issue breakouts where members share issues and possible solutions. Then those ideas are shared with the collective meeting and a consensus is formulated. We have been doing this for the past two years with our association implementing a strategic governance style of association management. In the past, our meetings were limited to reporting on past activities with little time spent on the future. This new board process allows for greater member input and idea development. In addition, the MCAA is multi-regional and in fact, we are becoming multinational with our allies in Canada and developing ties in Australia. Ideas come to use through regional input as well. Since solutions and programs developed with the assistance of local industry associations and from our meetings will impact all contractors in all regions, having a very large and diverse group contributing enables us to develop quality programs with broad appeal.
MASONRY MAGAZINE: How do you view the board's role in man- aging the association and how does that differ from your role as President?
The role of the President is to be a visionary, to identify the long range direction and objectives. It's the role of the board to develop the plans to achieve that vision. The President also has to keep the focus of the association, the members and staff on the plan. What good does it do to spend time developing a grand plan and then never ask any one about it? In a sense, the President keeps everyone's feet to the fire and gets thing implemented.
MASONRY MAGAZINE: What are some of the keys to identifying the leaders of the future?
To me, one of the strongest attributes to being a great leader is having the ability to present your viewpoint in a strong persuasive way, but the ability to support the group consensus in an equally strong way for the benefit of the greater good. We find our industry's future leaders laboring on local boards and committees. And in many ways, they find us because their deep love of this industry causes them to seek a seat at the table on the national association. We just held a national Masonry Summit Meeting at our convention in Phoenix. We had the heads of nearly forty local industry associations in attendance. I believe you will see many of those leaders rise into national leadership within the MCAA.
MASONRY MAGAZINE: It seems that so many achievements have been reached by the national asso- ciation. Ten years ago the MCAA had a small budget of less than a half-million dollars and hardly any staff. Today, the budget is over two million. They've added staff in key areas such as code development and possibly you are looking to add a full-time staff person lobbying