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Thanking Our Volunteers

7/1/2011

I want to thank President Hover for this opportunity to write one of the President's Memos. As you know, due to the untimely death of former President Dick Stehly, Ken was pressed into service early and has done a stellar job, including writing an exciting series of memos. In line with President Hover's theme of "We Value the Volunteers," I wanted to highlight the importance of the volunteer work done by the members of one of our major oversight committees, the Technical Activities Committee (TAC).

TAC consists of 12 members plus the Chair, and several members of the ACI staff who attend their meetings and support the work of the volunteer members. TAC members are selected to represent the breadth of technical expertise within ACI and have previously served as Chair of one of ACI's 116 technical committees. Thus, they have already demonstrated their willingness to give substantial volunteer effort to advance the mission and goals of ACI and have experience with normal committee operations and interactions that take place between TAC and the technical committees of the Institute.

TAC normally meets for 3 days at the beginning of each ACI convention, plus they have a separate 3-day summer meeting. One of TAC's major activities is the review of technical documents (standards, guides, and reports) that are developed by technical committees, usually totaling 25 to 30 documents per year (3000 to 3500 pages/year). Before each TAC meeting, review groups are established to read and comment on committee documents submitted to TAC. These review groups conduct (sometimes lengthy) Web meetings to evaluate and tabulate all comments from TAC members and other selected reviewers, and then compose their official response to the committee. A face-to-face meeting between the review group and the Chair or other officers of the committee who submitted the document is then held to explain the TAC comments and recommended next steps for handling the document.

TAC appoints individuals as Chairs to all technical committees, manages the occasional technical dispute that can develop within and between committees, and maintains the "Technical Committee Manual" (the "rule book" on how to run a technical committee). Because TAC represents the technical expertise of ACI, it is also responsible for handling technical issues occasionally faced by the Institute.

TAC members are assigned as a liaison member (TAC Contact) for up to 11 technical committees. The TAC Contact's task is to maintain a close relationship with the committee Chair, attend committee meetings whenever possible, and aid the committee as it prepares documents for TAC review. In addition to TAC Contact interactions with specific committees, TAC also organizes a "Chair's Breakfast" meeting during each convention where TAC members and ACI staff present advice to committee Chairs on how to efficiently manage their committee activities.

One might ask, "Who would want to do all of that?" The simple answer is, "Only highly motivated individuals!" When most TAC members have completed their 6 years of service, instead of bemoaning all of the hours spent on document reviews and technical spats between committees, they will say, "These are the most meaningful years I have spent within ACI." The long hours of hard work with highly competent colleagues builds a bond that is both enjoyable and exhilarating. Such camaraderie and sense of accomplishment are hard to achieve at any stage in our professional lives.

Also, past TAC members seldom fade away into the general ACI membership. Instead, they normally maintain or move into even greater levels of service within ACI by either returning to the chairmanship of a technical committee, by working on a Board committee or task group, or by being elected to the Board of Direction, and occasionally by joining the long line of ACI Executive Officers.

So, with this memo I send a hardy salute to all current and former TAC members, and I urge all ACI members to both thank our TAC members and continue to challenge them with a steady flow of high-quality documents for their review.

Guest Author James K. Wight,
ACI Senior Vice President

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