Georgiana Kipp first showed up for
work in November 1985 at the 26-member Plumbing and Piping Contractors
Association of DuPage County as its second on-staff executive director.
It was a part time job, 20 hours a week at $10 an hour. She found
it by answering an ad in the Chicago Tribune to help pay for her daughters'
college. (She had just earned an MBA with Distinction at Illinois
Benedictine University.)
The first office was in the master bedroom of an old home in
Wheaton owned by a real estate agency. About six months later, she moved
the office to a 250-sq ft space in the basement of the Downers Grove Tivoli
Theater, with borrowed and "found" furniture (no computers). Tim Ceren was
president.
Member services were few - a mostly-social monthly meeting, an
annual golf outing and Christmas party, and a one- page newsletter. (She
held her first newsletter to five pages to qualify for minimum postage.)
A few months after she came on board, regional bargaining fell apart and
she began to really get her feet wet.
21 Years of Growth
Georgiana now enters retirement having created a 21-year era of achievement and excellence. The organization grew to become the Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors Authority of Northern Illinois - with 120 members in six counties, four full-time staff and a wide array of member services cataloged in its 10-section Services Directory. In August 1999, the association moved into its current 3,000 sq-ft office - its first coordinated space. (This was the first time that do-it-yourself bookshelves were not used.) The annual operating budget grew from under $50,000 when she started in 1985 to almost $1 million now. Along the way, PAMCANI has won dozens of awards for outstanding achievement and excellence.
How Did It Happen?
How did all this
happen? Georgiana will say, "The leadership wanted their association to provide
more than social contact. They really wanted forward-thinking services that
only an association could provide - and they empowered me to do the job. They
recognized that, being busy running their own businesses, they needed some one
to look ahead at what's coming and to lead them to where they had to go. They
were very open to suggestion. They just trusted me to get things done."
The first major innovation was the "DuPage County Directory," which
brought together information in one place about the variations on the Illinois
Plumbing Code by municipality with which the members had to cope. Today, PAMCANI produces five such directories covering all the counties in
Northern Illinois, expanded to include electrical and mechanical, in print and
on CDs.
Georgiana was born and raised in Chicago's Back of the Yards
neighborhood. She married and had three children (now has four grandchildren),
stayed home 15 years to raise her children and worked at earning that MBA
degree one course at a time. Her first experience with associations was as a
volunteer with the League of Women Voters.
Widely Recognized
Over the years, Georgiana has been recognized for personal achievement by many
organizations. The Illinois State Board of Education gave her its "Those Who
Excel Award of Merit" as a parent/community member for 1991-1992 (her children
attended Woodridge schools and Downers Grove North High School). The Village of
Woodridge named her Citizen of The Year in 1985. She earned a Merit Citation
from the Woodridge Park District in 1981. And she was NAPHCC Executive of the
Year for 1992. She has been a member of the Illinois Building Commission
Planning Subcommittee, the Task Force for a Uniform Building Code and its
Plumbing adhoc Committee.
Georgiana was not the only family member
involved in the community. Her husband Leon served as president of both the
Woodridge Park Board and SEASPAR, and was a commissioner on both boards for
over 15 years.
Nurtured Many Innovations
The directories are hardly the only innovations Georgiana nurtured. There are, for example, the poster contests for children, the award-winning Association Web site, the award-winning Get2KnowH2O web site sponsored by PAMCANI, the various safety manuals including the "Foreman Safety Manual" and the "Company Safety Policy Manual," the print and video lending libraries, the seminars and publications on current topics, (i.e., management and personnel issues, OSHA compliance, green buildings, mold, lead, antitrust compliance), the consumer-oriented Plumbing & Mechanical Excellence Program, the Careers Video, the cable advertising program, the consumer "Care & Repair" booklet, the emergency services maps for contractors, the "Conservation Ken" activity booklet for grade school students, legislative advocacy through the PAC, and more and more. Just to be sure that nothing is overlooked, PAMCANI leadership holds an annual three-day, long-range planning meeting.
Giving back to the communities it serves, Georgiana oversaw the Association holiday food/clothing drives, its Appalachia Donation Program and its fundraisers for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Not every innovation worked. A "Faucet Fair" product show didn't draw enough attendance to warrant continuing it, so it wasn't. However, for example, the Safety Awards Program was (and still is) a hit. But most innovation worked in response to the challenge it answered.
With its energetic programs to create new and better member services, the Association developed a reputation that attracted other associations and their Industry Funds to merge with it beginning in the 90s. A driving force was consolidation that merged five union locals into Local 501.
More Challenges Coming
More challenges are coming, she says, such as changes in regulations and contract language, new code issues, the ever-more sophisticated consumer, trends toward water fit for purpose, new contaminants in water, long-term supply, coping with new legislation, changes in the product supply chain, recruiting apprentices and a shrinking union market share. "The secret to success in meeting them," Georgiana says, "is to be ahead of the times."
"Our Association has become a teen-ager," Georgiana says, "and I feel comfortable turning my baby over to SJ. And I now intend to take control of every day lily in my backyard." |
