Thinking about the recent past....

What has happened in our Chapter since I joined in 2000?

We used to meet at Club 4100 in Brooklyn, MD, immediately south of downtown Baltimore. A very blue collar part of town & an equally blue collar venue. Probably too blue collar for a professional organization, but it somehow suited us. The food was always great - meat & potatoes stuff. Usually some sort of steak, prime rib or chicken, salad, vegetables, cheap drinks. I think a can of Budweiser was $2 & a mixed drink was $2.50. Cost to the chapter was less than $25 per plate. We charged membership $25 a head.

The problems with the place were several. To get to the meeting room, you had to walk through the crowded & smokey bar. There was no good place for the Board to meet. We would meet in a room wedged in between the kitchen & large meeting room. It was cramped & noisy with HVAC sound. Plus, as the meeting room & hors d'oeuvers were set up, there was constant movement through the room. As members began to arrive, the house chair would set up in the same room to take money & hand out name tags.

The men's bathroom was atrocious. It had 1 toilet stall, 1 urinal & 1 sink in the space where only a toilet & sink should be. You could not realistically have more than 2 people in the room at a time. The whole venue was old, dirty & not kept very well.

However, Manny & Dino, the brothers who owned the place, treated us well & would go out of there way to help us. I remember one member who is Eastern Orthodox requesting a special plate during Lent. They fixed him a beautiful vegetarian plate without advanced notice or extra cost.

I was elected as a Chapter Director in 2002 & served for fiscal years 2003 & 2004. That whole time, a certain faction of Chapter leadership tried to get us to leave Club 4100 for a better venue. With my wife being in event planning, I knew a change would mean an increase in cost. Our Industry members who frequented other chapters talked of $45-50 meetings. As a relatively young person with a family of 4, I could barely afford the $25 each month. I very vocally expressed this concern that I would not be able to attend each month should the cost go above $35 or so.

A somewhat vocal battle commenced over how companies should either support their professional organizations or not. The firm I was with at the time, paid my AIA & CSI dues, but the rest was on me. The proponent that firms should foot the entire cost was a person who eventually would be elected President, but would not renew his membership & would have to be replaced as President.

Looking back, I joined Baltimore CSI at a time of tremendous change. We had good, strong leaders, BG, BL and others. We also had some people who were backing out of leadership - PG, CN, DL, BB, PB. Some of these guys, like Paul & Don, were still around, but letting others take over running the Chapter. Don's unfortunate stroke left a major hole in the old guard whom the Chapter needed to help. Certain other defections, J. Green most notably, left the Chapter vulnerable.

There was faction of people who sought to press new, eager members into immediate leadership service, rather than trying to fill the holes in other ways while letting new members learn. I was fortunate that I was smart enough to be a Director & not immediately jump into more advanced leadership. The Chapter suffered through the early 2000's with people who probably were not ready to lead holding the Presidency. Without being too harsh, I would say before Rod A. took over when Eric M. basically abdicated the Presidency, we had 2 years of folks who weren't not prepared to adequately lead the Chapter. That meant the gains made by BL & BG during their 3 years as President were lost. The travesty that became the fall of 2004, with Eric M's debacle, brought this issue into specific light. Rod realized that we need to bring in new blood to the Board & committee chairs & train new leaders.

Sarah C to her credit, was not ready to move up to the Presidency despite serving as 1st VP & being next in line when Eric abdicated. Rod stepped up as President & left 2nd VP open, which I assumed with the understanding that I would leap-frog Sarah to serve as President before her.

It was a trying & troubling time in the Chapter history. We also were dealing with basically an absentee treasurer in Jerry W. & a non-existent Newsletter editor in Jerry's wife. Through 2004, our attendance at monthly membership meetings dropped dramatically because our newsletter was not getting out regularly, our Programs chair took a new job & went AWOL while travelling all over the country to train for his new job, so the quality of our programs suffered. We had also recently changed our meeting location from Club 4100 to Admiral Fell Inn in Fells Point, which angered many older members. They felt like Ken H, President when the change was made, did it for self-serving reasons as his office was literally 2 blocks down from Admiral Fell. There was also sticker shock - meeting cost went to $35, you had to either plug a meter or pay to park in a garage, drinks went to $5-6 each, depending on what you got.

Out of this came a core group of people who genuinely like each other & were dedicated to the cause. They include, Ken H, Liz S, Scott S, Sarah C, Rod A, Susan R, Edna H, Jason V, Steve E, Rob F, Todd G & myself. Of that group were recent Presidents Ken & Liz, past presidents Edna & Todd & the future leaders of Rod, Sarah, Rob & myself - the next 4 presidents who will lead us into the future.

50th Anniversary

I haven't posted in a while, but have some issues that might need to be worked out here.

In 2009, our CSI Chapter will celebrate its 50th Anniversary. In 1984 for the 25th Anniversary, the Chapter published a paperback book of its history. A digital copy lives on our web site at www.csibaltimore.org under "Chapter Handbook" tab. I would like to replicate this effort for the last 25 years, but my involvement is limited to only the last 6 years. I've been a member since 2000, but didn't attend meetings until 2001. Many of the past presidents of the '80's & '90's are inactive or in the case of Bill Grabowski, passed away.

It seems that we should embark on a quest to interview these past presidents.