NASBP High-Power Membership Contributions and Events Raise the Bar

I hope you enjoyed your summer and had time to make memories with your families. I did. We, like many of you have told me, spend time near water, be it a lake, beach or seashore. In our case, it is Lake Cumberland, Kentucky, a beautiful lake with many fast boats, especially during the annual Poker Run weekend, following Labor Day. This year, about 150 of the prettiest and fastest boats zipped around the Lake—some at up to 185 miles per hour. One of the boats had twin jet engines—the same engines used to power attack helicopters. Several other boats had twin 1300 horse power motors pushing them to speeds of excess of 150 miles per hour. The fun-to-watch scene was noisy and scary; craziness. Those boaters know how to have a good time!

Between summer vacations, a great deal of work and planning of the NASBP Regional meetings in Chicago and Seattle took place. For those of you who were not able to attend these two Regional Meetings, you missed out in both cases. They were stellar in all aspects.

Let’s start with the 4, 5, 6, & 7 Regional Meeting held in Chicago. Erle Benton, Jason Gusso, Toby Miclette, and Jennifer Salm picked a great location–the Hyatt Regency Riverside in downtown Chicago. Because I am from Palatine, Illinois, which is 18 miles west of Chicago, I may be slightly prejudiced toward Chicago. The City of Chicago is beautiful this time of year. We have a magnificent park system along Lake Michigan with harbors full of water craft of all types and sizes, hiking and biking trails throughout, two baseball parks (we had a Saturday outing to a Chicago Cubs Rooftop for an afternoon baseball game), numerous museums, zillions of restaurants, golf courses, and more. Between the scheduled NASBP educational sessions and presentations, we had a lot of activities to choose from, and everyone enjoyed the surroundings.

You would normally associate Seattle, Washington with rain; however, the weather for the NASBP 1, 2 & 3 Regional Meeting was sunny with a high of 75 degrees during the day and 50 degrees at night. Stuart O’Farrell, Mark Munekawa and Warren “Bud” Withrow chose an excellent site for their meeting—downtown Seattle’s waterfront district near Pike Place Market. Seattle views were spectacular.

An important part of the Meetings was the educational programming. Merchant’s Bonding’s presentation, titled “Managing Subcontractor Risks” that qualified as continuing education, was presented in Chicago by Merchant’s Steve Dorenkamp and Scott Bailey. The presentation in Seattle was handled by Merchant’s Mike Safris and William Warner. NASBP is thankful to Merchants Bonding for providing this valuable information on subcontractor risks and facilitating these programs, not just at the September Regional Meetings but also at the NASBP 2012 Annual Meeting and the 8, 9, 10 & 11 Regional Meeting.

Chicago’s Regional Meeting had a breakout session, titled “Bonding a P3,” presented by Paul Ranalli from Zurich Surety. Ranalli thoroughly explained the unique demands placed on a surety’s underwriting a public-private partnership project, how these projects vary significantly depending on the owner and the state in which the project is built, and how P3s are more difficult to undertake in the United States than in Canada. Since Canada has been doing public-private partnerships longer, it has years of data on these projects and has established consistency in coverage. Ranalli also participated in the Seattle Regional Meeting program with Robert Kjome of Roebbelen Contracting on a panel on the topic of alternate contract delivery systems. The Regional Directors also organized a panel session that addressed assaults on the surety product with panelists Richard “Dick” Minick, Erle Benton, and Mark McCallum.

Both of the Regional Meetings had great Keynote speakers. The Regions 4, 5, 6, & 7 Keynote Speaker, Conor Cunneen, whose “Gift of GAB” motivational talk had everyone thinking about how to be more effective and handle problems daily as they arise. Cunneen, an Irishman who still has an amazing accent after living in Chicago for about 20 years, offered unique tools surety professionals can use to face the daily challenges of the surety industry by employing his principle of GAB that stands for, goals, attitude and behavior.

The Keynote Speaker for the Region 1, 2, & 3 meeting in Seattle was Mark Matteson, a professional trainer and author who helps employees and companies become more energized and effective. Matteson demonstrated that he is a speaker with a passion for helping people change the habits that hold them back and find ways to be happier while becoming more accomplished in their lives.

In summary, everyone attending these two September Regional meetings received many returns for their time and registration fee. If you have not attended a NASBP Regional meeting recently, plan on attending next year. Your Regional Directors work hard to design and present relevant, beneficial programs. Make it a goal to thank them for their efforts when you next see them.

Earlier this month NASBP held the NASBP Mid-Year Board of Directors meeting in Chicago. I admit the site location for the meeting was my decision, and if you know much about Chicago, you know the weather during this time of year is a big gamble. Anything from snow to a heat wave is possible—sometimes in the same day! We were lucky, it was clear and sunny until Saturday morning when indoor activities were scheduled. The fact that it rained while we were in the Board meeting only added to the appreciation of the nice weather that we had earlier.

For the Executive Committee, the Mid-Year Meeting began Wednesday, October 10, with our joint meeting with the SFAA Executive Committee. I am pleased to report that the two associations are working well together and that the relationship is stronger than ever. We are working together to defend against threshold increases, bond waivers, and discretionary bonding requirements. Our joint efforts on federal issues are centered on improving the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Bond Guarantee Program, excluding the federal Miller Act from periodic threshold increases for inflation, implementing contracting reforms regarding improper contract bundling, and clarifying mentor-protégé programs. We were pleased with the results of our joint efforts in New Mexico to explain how well the surety product has served the state of New Mexico and to counter an attempt to eliminate the use of bonds on state projects. NASBP and SFAA were able to respond to the New Mexico State Committee’s questions and help the Committee conclude that New Mexico should keep the requirement for surety bonds and to add additional protections to ensure their use was continued.

That Friday, October 12, of the Mid-Year Meeting was dedicated to NASBP Committee meetings. We had a great turn out with many Committee members attending in person and teleconferencing into the meetings. The Committees are working exceptionally hard and accomplishing amazing things. Whenever you get the chance, thank the members of these Committees for what they have accomplished and continue to undertake for NASBP. For example, the Professional Development Committee with assistance of NASBP staff develops the NASBP Surety Schools, educational workshops, virtual seminars, and on-line continuing education courses. A project the Committee is overseeing right now is development of a Level III curriculum of the Surety School. A task force of this Committee, headed by Tom Padilla and Tom Durkin that includes Paul Amstutz, Dedi Belis, Erle Benton, Matt Cashion, Susan Hecker, Ed Heine, Bud Herndon, Jim Lareau, Larry McMahon, Ralph Pulver, and Bob Shaw, is executing this herculean effort with a goal of offering it by next summer. These people are to be commended for their devotion and effort.

We have a core group of people that work hard for this Association and have, “Raised the Bar,” high. It is time for more of you to get involved. Don’t be shy or retiring. You will not be asked to do more than you can or are prepared to do. Just as those learned who are already participating, you will discover that you receive much more in return from your efforts than you give. Remember the goal. If we each do one more thing this year than last, we will be collectively “Raising the Bar.”

Sincerely,

Carl E. Dohn, Jr.
NASBP President

Carl E. Dohn, Jr. is President of Dohn & Maher Associates in Palatine, IL. He can be reached at carldohn@dohn.com.