Annual Report

Executive Director's Report

Working Together to Make a Greater Difference

By Steven Davis, CAE

Today’s economy is testing us all to one degree or another. We are feeling the hit at the gas pump, the grocery store, and in our retirement funds. This is not a fun time in that regard. So, too, is this a challenging time for your professional association … but we are up to that challenge. 

Our focus is to ensure that we support our members by maintaining a current portfolio of products and services that is as good as we can make it, while absorbing the realities of a down economy.  That is a test for all employers … AIHA is no different.

We felt the squeeze of the economy during 2008 budgeting this past fall. With rising prices pretty much across the board, we were hard pressed to accomplish everything we wanted to in support of our members. Our options were fairly limited when it came to expanding our fiscal wherewithal to accomplish more. We could tighten up to reduce expenses, which we did. We could expand existing or find new non-dues revenue streams, which we did. We could tap invested reserves through existing policy, which we did. And, we could raise fees, which we did minimally. Although we did not increase the price of membership, PDCs, or laboratory accreditation, we did increase conference fees and the cost of proficiency analytical testing samples in the lab program.

Although 2008 is going to be another very good year for AIHA as a whole, in regard to what we accomplish in support of our strategic initiatives … and therefore in support of our members, we know from experience that even if the economy should turn around today, it will be an average of three years before employers, members, and other customers will begin to spend at the level they did prior to the economic downturn. That means that revenues will be impacted because of fewer people participating in our conferences and other educational events, purchasing books, participating in our laboratory quality assurance program, and partaking of other products and services. And as is the case for each of you in your own personal lives, we will have to continue to economize and spend wisely during that period.

Although a fiscally tight time, we continue to accomplish what I feel are the most important initiatives on our plate. We have our priorities well set, and with a Board, other volunteers, and the AIHA staff all focused on value to the member, we are getting important things accomplished. In addition to meeting the educational needs of our members through conferences and continuing education, including distance learning, an award-winning magazine, and a journal jointly produced with ACGIH®, an average of 10 new book titles annually, a thriving program of committees, working groups and task forces through which new products and services are developed, an essential Laboratory Quality Assurance program, state and federal government affairs activity, and a host of other efforts … here are just a few of the pursuits I would point to:

• The Value of the Profession study has been completed, and the communications plan that will put results in the hands of members, the media, and employers is now being implemented. There is much more work to be accomplished in this area, but this initial effort surfaced significant data that should bring about long-term benefit to our members, such as program evaluation, program promotion, and program need.
• The Laboratory Quality Assurance Program that continues to fund all sorts of AIHA activity is in the process of pursuing a new governance/operations model that should enable it to perform its important work all the more efficiently and effectively, while limiting potential liability to the association.
• Through the restructuring of the Practice, Standards, and Guidelines Committee, including the development of three project teams, a much more structured and strategic approach to AIHA’s pursuit of standards and guidelines will be one end result. This will enable us to sharpen our focus, especially in regard to international standard setting.
• The Academy of Industrial Hygiene is in the process of restructuring itself to be even more of an impact on the strategic intentions of the Association. And, as a first endeavor under this new structure, the Academy will be shepherding our value of the profession study findings along a path to developing the products and services our members will need to utilize that data.
• Through a restructured approach to surfacing, evaluating, prioritizing, and implementing international activity, AIHA is set to solidify its international plan of action and to ensure that we are moving forward in integrated and strategic fashion.
• Working closely with our Student and Early Career Professionals Committee, we have a brand new focus on growing the number of students pursuing IH as a career and in cultivating these individuals into the next generation of OEHS professionals.

Working closely with a tremendous number of members who volunteer at multiple levels, we are overcoming the adversity of a poor economy and getting the job done. We will never be fully satisfied with the degree to which we are doing more, but I think we should all feel very good about the fact that we are doing everything that we can … and we are doing it together.

And this reminds me of a Winston Churchill quote, “If we are together nothing is impossible.  If we are divided all will fail.”

Let us continue to work together to make a greater difference.