Encouraging News to Report On the State of the Association.

• Author: Skibbie, Larry
• Position: Brief Article

As we recover from the frantic pace of activities surrounding the NDIA Fall meeting of our Board of Directors and Board of Trustees, I would like to share with you what I believe were some significant accomplishments from that meeting. The word "recover" is appropriate in this context, because these semi-annual meetings of our Boards are all-out efforts for the association's staff.

The Boards of Directors and Trustees are representatives of you, our members, and, in that sense, provide us with your advice and direction for the future.

The Fall meeting this year consisted of multiple events. For the opening dinner, we had as keynote speaker the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Dr. Jacques S. Gansler. The following morning's breakfast saw Pierre A. Chao, aerospace and defense industry analyst for Credit Suisse First Boston, who provided a realistic assessment of how the defense industry should deal with Wall Street. We also had scheduled an appearance by the Presidential Transition Team at the end of the meeting. But it was unable to appear, for obvious reasons.

However, these were only the formalities. The core of the meeting was an assessment of our past year of operation, as well as a detailed discussion of the national issues that NDIA will espouse for the coming year.

Our just-completed fiscal year was perhaps our best yet. And I can report the state of the association is excellent. We made several significant accomplishments:

* Published an Education & Lobbying Policy document, to guide our actions in this important area (discussed in the October edition of this column). We are one of only a handful of associations nationwide to have a published policy in this area.

* Developed a package of issues for consideration by both the Bush and the Gore campaigns. We received endorsement of these issues from five other major defense associations, and both campaigns responded positively to our issues.

* Increased the frequency of publication of National Defense Magazine to 12 issues a year, versus the previous 10 per year.

* Grew advertisements in the magazine by 29 percent, due to increased readership.

* Increased attendance by 14 percent at our 79 conferences and exhibitions (our most valued activity, according to member surveys).

* Increased corporate membership in NDIA and our affiliates, NTSA and AFEI.

* Successfully communicated the NDIA message on the defense industrial base to various media outlets...