Did you run for student council when you were in high school? I didn’t. I haven’t really run for anything. The only thing that might, sort-of, qualify is the election of building stewards for the union. But that’s more of a situation where you volunteer to do it and there’s an election to make it official.
Last Fall I decided to try to get elected to the Board of Trustees of our pension fund. For the last 13 years I’ve been on the PAC associated with the fund. It’s the perfect education for the board because you learn about pension legislation and try to educate legislators about your issues, etc. It has also helped to be on two contract negotiating teams and a trustee of the union scholarship fund. I guess I had to be elected to be a trustee for the scholarship fund, but it’s more like an uncontested election and there isn’t really any question of being elected. The point is, I’ve got decent credentials to be elected to the board for this election.
The tricky thing about this election is that there is another person on the board with my same last name. The other one has been retired for about 15 years. Many active teachers do not know him. Many retirees do.
When you have the same last name, people have various expectations. It’s hard for people to understand that you can still be completely professional. The two of us actually do have experience at this already, but it was about 15 years ago when we taught in the same building. We were colleagues in the same department with rooms in opposite hallways and rarely saw each other.
When I decided to run for the board, I got all of the paperwork ready and submitted. Mr Same-name did not know I was running. He found out when another board member told him.
The results of the election were made public at the annual meeting this past Thursday. The top three candidates get elected and there were four of us running. I’ll admit that it was nice to hear that people were glad that I was running and supported me. I actually received enough votes to keep up with the incumbents. The candidate that finished fourth was very gracious and said that he didn’t expect to get elected and he thought I had great credentials for the board.
So now I start my first 3-year term and learn more about investing and pension legislation. My vocabulary will be expanding with Large Cap, Mid Cap and Small Cap Growth, actuarial assumptions, stocks, bonds, equity, annuities, real estate, securities, and the list goes on. Mr Same-name and I will take on a new adventure of being colleagues of sorts once again. We’ll have our professional relationship in the board room. Outside that venue, I’ll still call him Dad.
January 22, 2012 at 6:25 pm
I wish you well with your board term. I have served on two boards and neither time has left me wanting more. As a matter of fact, I just told Terry that if anyone asks me to serve on a board again, to remind me of the past two attempts and how aggravated they made me. The first one was almost 35 years ago, and I ended up being the president of the darn thing. Yikes. The second time, just this past year, I somehow became the treasurer; again, yikes. I like to see things done right, and when they aren’t, I step in, speak up, and get myself into these positions. Then, I look around and realize there is no one else to do anything right. Hopefully, your experience will be entirely different.