50 YEARS FOR THE MINNEAPOLIS-ST PAUL CHAPTER

By Jon Rao Papke, CSI, CCS, AIA

Chapter President

 

What makes a chapter successful for 50 years? I don’t think there is any one answer, but rather, things need to change over time to meet changing needs and interests. In preview of the Minneapolis-St Paul Chapter 50th anniversary this year, we took a retrospective look of the chapter at our December 2006 Chapter meeting. Several of our long term members were invited to be part of a panel discussion. Before I get into what we are doing today, I’d like to present some excerpts from that meeting as written down by Terry Olsen for the January 2007 chapter newsletter Specifics. On the panel was (left to right in the photo) Angelo (Angie) Percich, President 1972-74; Don Hammer, President 1980-81; Audrey Brucker, President 1982-83; Jim Kellett, President 1966-68; Wayne Brock; Wally Neal; and Jim Bublitz.


…asked what life was like in the first days of our chapter. Angie said there were about 25 to 30 original charter members for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Chapter (today the chapter has between 400 and 500 members).  Audrey added the chapter meeting locations were based on who had the best steak fillet at the cheapest price.  Many of the early meetings were held at the somewhat scary basement of the Midway Twins Motor Lodge, where a salad, baked potato and a steak went for $3.25.  Jim Kellett added that for him the most memorable meeting was put on by the Christian Brothers Winery, the topic being: “How do you specify good wine?“ (Proprietary specs, I’m sure, although it could be fun sampling the “or equals“ for possible substitution.)  At this meeting, instead of giving the speaker a gift as we do now, the speakers themselves brought the gifts.  With each mini course the group learned about another type of wine and sampled it as well.  Then the business meeting began, and it went on, and on, and on, and on, and even guys who never spoke were waxing eloquent.  It was the longest meeting he remembers.  Jim Bublitz added the members were very spirited people (especially THAT night!) and locations with cheap drinks were as important as cheap steaks.

Angie informed us that the Industry members caught on to what a great idea CSI was before the Professional members.  However, Wally added, that Industry members were not allowed to hold offices and were treated as second class citizens.  In fact, to keep the “proper” ratio of Industry to Professional members, Industry representatives could only become members if they recruited a Professional Member, and they could not hold the position of President.  Times have changed, thankfully, and we have so many wonderful Industry members holding various positions within our Chapter, in our Region, and at Institute. 

The Chapter’s forms of communication have changed to what we see today, with an on-line newsletter and email blasts informing us of upcoming Programs.  The first newsletters were cut-and-paste – LITERALLY – for about 6 months.  That was replaced with typewritten notes on orange paper.  Then in 1981 the Chapter took advantage of advertising and Wally founded and edited Specifics until 1982, when the duties were passed along to Greg Zech and then to Tom Matthews.

Dale Moll, starting in the late 1960’s, really managed to change things, according to Jim Kellett. The Chapter started getting sponsors, looking at budgets, and fiscally moving to the correct side of the red-black line.  Audrey added that Dale introduced long-range Chapter planning.  In fact, Dale transferred that budget sense to the Institute when he served as national president.

Long-time member, and noteworthy panelist from the back of the room, Alana Griffith, being the first female Industry Institute President mentioned that camaraderie is very important, and that it may not be politically correct or gain us educational credit, but there is a lot of benefit to socializing, and partying, and paying the band a little extra to keep playing until 1:00.  We should get back to enjoying ourselves, because it’s also about how much fun we can have together.  Angie added, the social aspect also allows you to learn from each other, as our members are always willing to share.  The Orientation meeting is critical to letting new members know who we are and helps us retain members.

Marthe Brock (FY’07 President) ended with a final question: “Do you have any sage words of advice you’d like to share with us?”  Don recommended that every member get involved in more than just monthly program attendance, as he found CSI gave so much to the formation of his career that he achieved a level he never anticipated. Wally noted that one thing that spoils an organization is when someone tries to do it all themselves – instead, split up the job and give it out.  It builds camaraderie as well as grows the depth of our members.  Jim Bublitz advised, “You gotta do something…You gotta go out and get on committees and some of them may not be as much fun.  But it’s amazing how many people you get to know.  Go to the National Convention – you can’t believe how much fun it is!”

I think some of the biggest things to stay successful as a chapter are to encourage participation of members so they can get the most out of their membership, and then provide worthwhile and interesting opportunities for them to participate in. When I joined the Chapter 22 years ago, in addition to the various committees that people could join and the monthly meetings, there was an informal monthly morning discussion group (over breakfast in a restaurant) sponsored through the Education Committee and aptly called “Specifiers Breakfast”. It was a wonderful introduction for a younger architect like myself to network with more experienced specifiers and learn one heck of a lot. This was then followed by a more structured event called Roundtable II which discussed a given product or system type for 3 hours. Industry Roundtable was another breakfast monthly breakfast format that was created for industry members to discuss common areas of interest. The chapter also offered study workshops for certification, and lately has become very active in developing “for profit” seminars which are offered to the entire design/construction community.

 

In the past, our December or January monthly program was often more of a social event with dinner and a dance. Today, we don’t put on a holiday program. But we do provide a variety of topics at the monthly programs that include general information, technical topics and building tours. This year our programs included a presentation from Target’s Assets Protection experts on their 2 forensic labs; a comparison talk by attorneys on the general conditions authored by AIA, EJCDC and the AGC’s Consensus Documents; building green; a product  fair with seminars; and of course, coming up this June will be the annual golf outing. We also provide variety in meeting times. 10 years ago, we met at the same hotel every month for a dinner meeting. Members liked the consistency. Today we alternate between noon, late afternoon, and evening meetings; as well as switching locations around the metro area. You can argue about consistency, but the fact is, we’ve seen an increase in member attendance at meetings, and we’ve seen members attending who couldn’t before when meetings were held only in the evening. We still hold to the 3rd Monday of the month.

Of course attracting and retaining members is an obvious part of being a healthy chapter. In addition to participating in Institute’s strategies, the Membership Committee has several other initiatives in place:

  • Meeting at firms to discuss the benefits of CSI and follow-up communications to those firms
  • Follow-up to visitors/guests at chapter events, and providing membership materials at educational seminars and certification exam review classes
  • Calling recently certified people to become members
  • Encouraging each member to invite a non-member guest to a chapter meeting once each year at no cost
  • Communicating member benefits by staffing a booth at the state AIA convention and CSI chapter product show
  • Individually calling members who have not renewed to encourage renewal
  • Name tags at all chapter events
  • Various forms of an ambassador program that pairs a new member and an older member until they get comfortable in the group
  • Highlighting a new member each month in the chapter newsletter in a column called New Member Spotlight
  • Recognizing new members at chapter meetings
  • Conducting at least two Member Orientations each year to explain the various programs of the chapter and Institute to new members and any older members who feel a need to learn more

The chapter has also been a supporter of student members in the last several years. We have a strong relationship with Dunwoody College of Technology and are looking at other local technical colleges and the U of M. Since some of these student members will become future professional and industry members, it’s important to provide programs that will bring value and interest specifically to them, too.