One of the great rewards that come from chairing an Association like ours is seeing smart, busy people making it their business to see it succeed—succeed in its mission and succeed as an organization. Seeing members at all levels making time to assist with the issues they all face, and in so doing making FRA truly "their" Association, reaffirms FRA's importance to me.
Apart from the economic conditions, the restructuring of our industry has had an impact on FRA. Not only are fewer mills operating, but those mills have been consolidated among fewer organizations. The effect has been to reduce FRA's dues base, and we have had to cut expenses. FRA today operates on an annual budget that is 30% lower than it was a year ago, and we have reduced professional staff from ten to seven. To prevent further downsizing, those seven each took 10% salary cuts.
Throughout these tough times, FRA's commitment to member service has remained strong, partially, I think, because member commitment motivates staff commitment. The reason we have been able to keep up the pressure in an aggressive government relations agenda—gross vehicle weight reform, defense of independent contractor relationships, and speaking up about coming changes in DOL's H-2B visa guestworker program—is that the staff know they can count on the members to push and pull and weigh in at critical points.
In short, we have been and continue to be a viable Association through these tough times.
I am very pleased to report that several members that have been on leaves of absence are now rejoining FRA, and your Association's financial situation is already much improved. In my view, the main reason for this improvement is your efforts to be salesmen for the Association—letting others know the difference FRA has made in your businesses and putting the value proposition out there in clear terms. Thank you!
The challenge remains: not to let up. A college football coach I knew used to say that the difference between a good team and a great team is, the great team is able to "put the game away when it can." Let's all pull harder.
Dick Carmical
FRA Chairman