December 5, 2018
It’s annual report time, and in this issue of BoxScore, you will find AICC’s 2018 Annual Report to the Membership (see Page 66). As with most annual reports you might read throughout the year, ours is a recapitulation of our financial results, membership numbers, program attendance, and meeting participation by you, our members. This is the stuff of annual reports.
This year, I want to highlight some nonquantifiable qualities behind AICC’s successful performance and influence in our industry. These reveal the real strength of your Association beyond revenue, expenses, and the health of our balance sheet.
The first of these is the incredible quality and character of AICC’s leadership structure, as seen in its board of directors. From the start of this Association, its founding fathers crafted a most sustainable leadership succession path, through which member volunteers serve in measured terms defined by orderly progression to higher levels. Those who step into the “chairs,” as we say, are five in number, providing a long-term view of the Association’s leadership direction. I commend you to BoxScore’s masthead page, where your current board of directors is listed.
Second on my list is the wonderful influx of enthusiasm and energy provided by our Emerging Leaders. When Mark Mathes of Vanguard Packaging served as Chair of the Association in 2013–2014, he made it his first priority to establish this group to help us focus on the future of our industry. “Too much gray hair in the room,” he said then. Now in its fifth-anniversary year, AICC’s Emerging Leader program has brought more than 150 young and future executives together to learn, share, and network, all for the betterment of their companies and the future of our industry.
Third, I want to give a deserved shoutout to AICC’s dedicated professional staff here in our offices in Alexandria, Va. What impresses me most about this group is their long-term loyalty to you, our members, through their service on AICC’s staff. Taking me out of the mix because I skew the numbers, the average tenure of your Association’s staff is more than 10 years, ranging from 20-plus down to two years. In a town where there’s an association of some kind or another on every corner, our staff’s loyalty to our industry is exemplary.
I know you will see in this year’s 2018 Annual Report to the Membership the quantifiable strengths of your Association. I hope you will understand the qualitative strengths, too, in your board leadership, our future Emerging Leaders, and our dedicated AICC staff.
Thank you for your continuing support.
Steve Young
President, AICC
