SWAAAE Board of Directors Meeting Board Room, Queen Mary, Long Beach, CA Friday, April 11, 2014, 1 p.m. 5 p.m. MEETING MINUTES I. Call to Order, Roll Call, Review Agenda President Casey Denny called the meeting to order at 1:06 p.m. Present: President Casey Denny, First Vice President Eric Peterson, Second Vice President Richard Smith, Immediate Past President Bill Ingraham, Selena Birk, Mike Dikun, Ron Elliott (via telecom), Jon Faucher, Gary Mascaro, Jessica Mullen, Jorge Rubio, Jon Stout Staff: Katie Elsberry Guests: Barry Rondinella, Wes Davis, Rod Dinger, Jonathan Hudson, Scott Malta, Jennifer Maples, Todd McNamee, John Pfeifer (via telecon), Judy Ross, Welton Trang, Karl Zittel II. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting held at the Monterey Plaza, Monterey, CA on January 26, 2014 a. President Denny asked and McNamee confirmed that Todd Hauptli insisted on getting paid one dollar more than his current salary, not one dollar more than his predecessor, which the meeting minutes indicated. ACTION: Dikun made a motion to approve the minutes of the January 26, 2014 Board meeting, as amended. Rubio seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. III. IV. President s Report a. President Denny reported: i. Since the last Board meeting he approved payments to be distributed for California s Aviation Day ($1000), AAAE s Annual Conference ($1000), AAAE s NAC ($500); as well as an additional NAC sponsorship of $4500 that will come from Board Approved Programs. ii. He attended the AAAE Chapter Meeting with First Vice President Peterson. Focus was placed on diversity and academic relations. iii. He provided a letter of support for McNamee in his bid for AAAE s Executive Committee, as well as a personal letter of support for Danette Brewley who is running for the At-Large position. iv. He appointed Welton Trang as the chapter s representative on AAAE s Academic Relations Committee. v. The FAA has now released two Asset reports, with Asset 2 being published in March 2014. Executive Director s Report a. Website Update i. Summer Conference Committee Group & Blog 1. Elsberry reported the Summer Conference committee is utilizing the groups blog feature that is available on the new website. On their group website the conference committee is now able to share conference related documents, post the committee teleconference schedule and communicate with each other using the group blog feature. b. Membership i. Non-Executive Memberships 1. Elsberry referred to the membership report included in the handout packet. The first part of the report includes a list of the Associate, Corporate, and Student members whose applications were accepted for membership from January 1, 2014 through April 1, 2014. President Denny said he would like to see some of the Associate members on the report from Phoenix-Mesa Gateway be considered for an Executive membership. There was much discussion on what qualifies someone for Executive membership. Katie read the description for Executive membership in SWAAAE s Bylaws. ACTION: Birk was asked to look into the confusion over Associate vs. Executive eligibility and report back with a suggestion at the July Board meeting. In the meantime, President Denny asked for Teresa McGaughey, Tony Bianchi, Ron King, Michael Merk, Mike Hanes and Patrick Oakley to be considered for Executive membership. ACTION: President Denny made a motion to ratify the Associate, Corporate, and Student memberships, as amended. Dikun seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. ii. Executive Membership Applications 1. Elsberry referred to the end of the membership report that lists membership applications received from January 1, 2014 through April 1, 2014 that are
recommended for approval for Executive membership. ACTION: Birk made a motion to approve all the Executive membership applications, including the addition of Teresa McGaughey, Tony Bianchi, Ron King, Michael Merk, Mike Hanes and Patrick Oakley. Stout seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. iii. Membership By Class Report 1. Elsberry referred to the membership report by class that was included in the handout packet for the Board s review which compares SWAAAE current membership numbers to one year earlier. Rondinella inquired why the number of honorary members decreased this year. ACTION: Elsberry will research and notify the Board. President Denny noted the number of accredited members stayed the same and said it is important we encourage accreditation. V. Financial Report a. 2013-2014 Third Quarter Financial Reports i. First Vice President Peterson referenced the third quarter balance sheet and profit and loss statement included in the handout packet. He reported that the association is financial healthy. b. Investment Strategy Discussion i. First Vice President Peterson said he would like to see SWAAAE earn a higher return on their investment then they do with their current CD. Elsberry said that the association currently has around $75,000 in a 7 month CD with a.11% interest rate. SWAAAE began investing in CDs at the suggestion of KCA in 2011; before then the funds we kept in a savings account with an even lower interest rate. First Vice President Peterson said that he is involved with another association and they made $4,000 last year on their investments. He set them up with a money manager, where the association had the option to pay an annual fee or have a cost per transaction; they choose the latter. Some concern was expressed by those in attendance and it was noted that the association would still need to be conservative in its investment strategy. Elsberry was asked and confirmed that it is part of KCA s services to make investments suggestions for the associations they manage based on the Board s level of desired risk. ACTION: Elsberry will report back at the July Board meeting with suggestions for SWAAAE s investments that will earn a higher return. c. 2014-2015 Budget i. First Vice President Peterson referenced the draft budget included in the handout packet. He noted that an increase was made to Executive Management Expenses based on the new contract with KCA. Executive Management Direct Expenses were also increased to cover the cost of having the Executive Director now travel for the Fall Board meeting. Website expenses were lowered, as they were only increased last year to cover the transition fee to move to YourMembership.com. ii. First Vice President Peterson pointed out that he included $20,000 in the draft budget for Technology as he would like to upgrade SWAAAE s equipment and purchase video equipment so SWAAAE can do what AAAE does on a smaller scale. It was asked what does AAAE do with the recordings and what will we do with ours? The suggestion was made to hire a vendor to record the sessions for the first year and see if the demand is there. Regarding SWAAAE s current equipment, it is 8-10 years old. Peterson referenced Technology Chair Davis report included in the handout packet that estimates $3,000 is needed to upgrade SWAAAE s technology. iii. The following amendments were made to the draft budget: 1. Increase Winter Conference revenue to $100,000 and increase expenses to $70,000 based on history. 2. Reduce Technology budget to $1,500. $2,364 is still available in the 2013-2014 budget to purchase equipment. 3. Increase Board Approved Programs to $24,000 to allow for future possible expenditures for the scholarship and/or internship program and/or technology. iv. ACTION: Dikun made a motion to approve the budget, as amended. Rubio seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. v. ACTION: Elsberry was asked to add the association s estimated reserves at the end of 2015 to the budget before sending it out the general membership for a vote.
VI. Action Items a. Membership i. Non-renewing 2013-2014 Members 1. Membership Committee Chair Birk referenced her membership report included in the handout report. Her report included a list of non-renewing members. Nonrenewals are down from the previous year. ii. New Member Outreach 1. Birk said she is comparing AAAE member list with SWAAAE member list, but it is taking a while since AAAE s list is in a PDF. Elsberry said AAAE may be not want to provide full contact information for members in a Word or Excel document, but she suspects they would provide Name and Company only. ACTION: Birk to inquire. Birk said President Denny and she are also scanning the list of public use airports against where SWAAAE has members from. iii. Academic Membership Discussion 1. Birk s membership report also outlined three ideas to increase membership for students and university faculty in SWAAAE. Currently the association has 27 student memberships, and faculty qualify for an Associate membership. During the discussion of the three options it was proposed student and faculty be offered a free membership. It was noted that there is a $20 management fee from KCA for any members over 475. Elsberry confirmed that SWAAAE is already over 475 members, but said KCA might be able to lower the fee for student/faculty overages if a new member packet did not need to be mailed and there was no payment processing. 2. ACTION: Stout made a motion to create a pilot program providing a free 2014-2015 SWAAAE membership to student and university faculty and to amend the Bylaws to replace a Student membership with an Academic membership which both student and faculty could qualify for. Second Vice President Smith seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. b. Internship Ad Hoc Committee i. Stout thanked President Denny for pointing him to the Southeast Chapter who currently has an internship grant program. Stout referenced the draft of a policy for SWAAAE s internship grant program that was included the handout packet. Elsberry passed around the draft of the Intern Program prepared by the Ad Hoc committee. Much discussion was had on the number of grants to be awarded, the amounts of each grant, how the applications will be vetted, when the award will be given out, the threshold for matching and if matching by the airport should be required. In the end the decision was made to survey the membership for their thoughts. ACTION: Stout is to coordinate a member survey with Elsberry. It was noted that in the future, the Internship Ad Hoc Committee and the Academic Relations Ad Hoc Committee may be combined. c. Procedures i. Status of Annual Review 1. Second Vice President Smith reported that he reached out to committee chairs for updates and got some replies. Elsberry then reviewed and provided some more updates and asked some questions. 2. One of those questions was if anyone knew what the association s ethic policy is that is referenced under the Ethics Committee procedures. Rondinella said he remembers Mark Witsoe putting together bullet points. ACTION: It was suggested First Vice President and Ethics Committee Chair Peterson review AAAE s policy and draft something similar for SWAAAE. 3. A few of Elsberry s question related to the Mike Shutt Scholarship. Is there a formal agreement in place? How long will it be provided? Does Mead & Hunt have any requests of SWAAAE, such as always having a representative on the scholarship committee? Faucher said that as long as Mead & Hunt makes money they will provide the scholarship. He also said it would be nice to have a representative on the Scholarship Committee. d. Scholarships i. Discuss on Partnering with Universities for Scholarships 1. Committee Chair Reade was unable to attend the Board meeting, but has been working with President Denny on a university scholarship program. President Denny referenced the report included in the handout packet. He reviewed Welton Trang s new duties as outlined in the report and said he is looking for the Board approval on Item e. Promote creation of partnership agreement with universities, pending Board concurrence. President Denny feels that by establishing a partnership, universities would commit to increased interaction with the
association, while SWAAAE would commit to scholarships dedicated specifically to their students. The following concerns were raised: a. SWAAAE losing control of who gets scholarships to the universities b. Is the scholarship guaranteed? What if there is no real stand out at a university for a scholarship? Also important to keep in mind that Program Items, like Scholarships flux based on profits, we don t want to commit to something we cannot cover. 2. Denny commented that his concern and the reason for this proposal is that a $200,000 association is only spending $10,000 on scholarships and most of those go to members already in the industry. 3. It was agreed that partnering with universities for scholarships needs more thought and that a decision could not be made at this time. VII. Informational Items a. 2014 Summer Conference Update i. Committee Chair Zittel reported: 1. One possible theme discussed has been Sea of Change. There was talk about incorporating family fun into the theme, but there were concerns attendees may have issues getting approval. Alternatively, the theme of the Monday night event has evolved into We Are Family. Brent Shiner joined the call to update the Board of the plans for the event. 2. Negotiations are ongoing with the aquarium for the Monday night event and looking favorable. 3. Golf contract needs to be finalized 4. The airport may be able to provide messenger bags for attendees versus the green grocery ones provided in the past. 5. Long Beach airport is providing the transportation for the Wednesday tours. 6. The Southern California Aviation Association (SCAA) maybe utilizing one of the extra rooms for sessions on Tuesday. They are also interested in holding a luncheon for SWAAAE attendees, with Clay Lacey presenting. Once details are finalized President Denny said he will work on a formal agreement with SCAA. b. 2015 Short Course Update i. Committee Chair Hudson reported that he has plans outlined for a promo video and that Brown-Wiggins agreed to be his co-chair. c. AAAE Accreditation Update/Final Interview Workshops i. Committee Chair Maples prepared a report, but not in time for it to be included in the handout packet. The report was displayed on the screen during the meeting and will be sent out with the final meeting minutes. Maples verbally reported: 1. There are seven individuals in the region actively preparing for the final interview, with a dozen in the wings. She said she would like to mirror the Great Lakes Chapter, as they have a great accreditation program. They put out a call to all A.A.E. s (even if outside the region) to be mentors, because they only have a dozen mentors in the region. The Examiner is not a mentor and only does the final review. 2. Three examiners are rotating off the BOE and will be replaced at the annual conference in San Antonio. Consideration is being given to filling the vacant At Large position. 3. The modules are now fewer pages and AAAE is printing them in August. 4. She is working with President Denny on determining who is eligible to embark on the accreditation process. d. AAAE Update i. Rondinella said the Mark Brewer sent out a letter recently on what is going on with linking AAAE and ACI. McNamee said the two organizations are working more closely on legislative items. Big pushes will be made to support raising PFC to 8.5% and focus will continue to be on the contract towers. McNamee noted the Annual Conference is May 17-21 in San Antonio and NAC is September 27-30 in Portland. Dinger reminded everyone a Chapter meeting is scheduled at the Annual Conference in San Antonio. ii. Malta thanked the chapter for his nomination. e. Awards i. Committee Chair Stout said that the Call for Awards was sent out, but he has not received any submissions. f. Bylaws i. First Vice President Smith said that there was nothing to report on, other then what was discussed previously in this meeting.
g. Corporate Member Update i. Committee Chairs Mullen and Faucher said there was nothing to report on. h. Credentials i. Committee Chair Mascaro said there was nothing to report on. i. Ethics i. First Vice President Peterson said he will locate AAAE s Ethics Policy and send it to the Board for review. j. Historical i. Committee Chair Mullen said there was nothing to report on. President Denny reminded everyone that we hope to have a historical session at the 2015 Short Course. k. Legislative iv. Committee Chair Pfeifer provided a report that was included in the handout packet. McNamee said the California bill SB 616 that SWAAAE supported is being amended for the next fiscal year. President Denny reported that the bill in Arizona that would take funds from the state Aviation Fund was stopped. l. Nominations i. Past President and Committee Chair Ingraham reported that a call for candidates has been published in SWAAAE alerts and will continue to appear until the deadline. He said there appears to be interest in all the positions and there may be some competition. He will be emailing out the full slate to the Board for approval in May. m. Policy Decisions i. Second Vice President Smith said that based on today s discussion there might possibility be two new policy decisions in the future one regarding an Academic membership and one regarding an Internship Program. n. Resolutions and Recognition i. Committee Chair Ahearn did not provide a report in advance and was not in attendance at the meeting. President Denny reminded the group to reach out to Ahearn if you have a recognition request. o. Technology i. Committee Chair Davis reported that the webcam used for today s meeting was a recent purchase. p. Time and Place i. First Vice President Peterson reported that the 2015 Summer Conference will be in San Jose. He is working with Rosalyn France at the San Jose airport to get a Chair assigned. Based on the rotation the 2016 conference should be in Nevada. It was noted that McCarran has a new director who might be more supportive. It was agreed a Vegas conference would be popular. VIII. IX. Directors Comments a. Stout said he liked the move to a Friday afternoon meeting. Members Comments a. Malta said that he agreed to be the moderator for the Hot Topics at the Summer Conference and asked if anyone has any suggestions to email him. b. McNamee thanked everyone for their support. He said he got copied on about 40 emails of support that were sent on his behalf. X. Adjourn a. Masacro made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 4:31 p.m. Rubio seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. Respectfully submitted: Katie Elsberry, SWAAAE Executive Director