Next week AME will announce the new members of our board of directors. Approximately 70 nominations were put forward for five director-at-large positions. These nominees included CEOs, continuous improvement leaders, academics, familiar and new faces to AME, and many other worthy candidates.
An expansive talent pool is an important asset for any organization. Having a deep bench allows you to create mentor/mentee relationships to groom future leaders, ensure diversity of backgrounds, ideas and perspectives, and cultivate succession plans and knowledge sharing. For AME, our vast network of members, volunteers and partners gives us strength to face our current challenges while fortifying us for our future work on behalf of the lean community.
The leaders, themselves, are also incredibly important. We have been fortunate to have wise board members to help us chart our course. Our engaged board has gifted us their time, their talents and their financial resources. Our board members aren’t just meeting periodically in an oversight role. AME members have benefited when our board has hosted workshops on topics like factory physics, opened their company’s doors to facility tours, provided strategic guidance for AME Consortia and Champions Club programming, donated to the Return Stronger fundraising campaign and spoken at our International Conference.
Leaders who roll up their sleeves and get involved help propel an organization forward. They show that they have skin in the game and passion for the mission.
On behalf of the AME members, I want to thank Jason Semovoski, who has completed his service on our board, having served last year as past chair. Likewise, the terms of director-at-large Greg Bruns and voting regional presidents Bob Dempsey and Barb Clayton have concluded. All four have contributed so much to our community and we are grateful for their service.
Bill Fierle has assumed the past chair role and Wayne Pitchford is our new board chair. I personally must thank Bill for his leadership and guidance as we tackled unprecedented challenges during my first year as AME’s president and CEO. Marc Braun is AME’s new chair-elect while Jenny Snow-Boscolo and Rich Fitzgerald will now serve as board treasurer and secretary, respectively. These five members make up the board's executive committee.
Thank you to each of our worthy nominees and to those who nominated them. Without people willing to raise their hand and volunteer, our deep bench would not exist.
Please keep an eye out for next week’s announcement of our new directors-at-large. In the meantime, Bill and Wayne have shared the video below with their thoughts on the selection process and our road ahead.
As always, please stay safe and keep looking out for one another.
