Road trips.

• Position: LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN - Letter to the editor

HAVING GRADUATED COLLEGE in 1972, I am of the generation that remembers "road trips" as weekend jaunts in search of adventure, though mine were much more tame than those immortalized in the movie "Animal House." Two decades later, when I began to join corporate boards, road trips took on a very different meaning. Usually one or two board meetings a year were visits to company field operations. These excursions helped to better acquaint directors with local management and vice versa. They were often in major European and Asian cities and sometimes in world-class resorts. They usually included spouses, and my wife and I looked forward to these trips, which incorporated social and educational activities with the business sessions.

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The financial meltdown starting in the summer of 2008 greatly reduced these trips, and by 2009 they were largely eliminated. From September 2008 through June 2011 my boards cancelled planned meetings, two in Europe and one in Asia, so as to underscore the corporate emphasis on expense control.

Over the past year as the world economy has improved, boards have increasingly gone back on the road. They have begun with meetings close to home, forgoing more expensive trips abroad. One of my boards that had planned a trip to China replaced it with one to a plant location in upstate New York.

Boards need to venture out from headquarters to visit field operations. These trips underscore a company's interest in staying in close touch with its local operations and give directors the opportunity to get to know the company's local management. For many years, we at DIRECTORS & BOARDS have promoted the benefits of board visits to facilities...