Bruce Brockman
USITT President

Well, two years has flown by in what seems like a flurry of board reports, graphs, charts, suspected corporate take-overs, budget reductions, new graphics design schemes, hotel attrition, and a third trip to Long Beach. Ironically we are still here!

While I would love to tell you that as President, I have single handedly set us on the right path, corrected the horrors of past decisions, and mapped out a bright shiny future, but it just ain’t so.

The growth and success of this organization lies squarely on the shoulders of all of its members.

What would motivate a volunteer like Bobbi Owen to spend the hundreds of hours she has invested to redesign and re-create the entire USITT web site?

Why would Joe Aldridge subject himself to the time-consuming task of seeking out, evaluating, and then selling the rest of us on conference sites?

Why would any of our hard working Commissioners invest the extraordinary time and energy to create programming year after year for conferences?

What made Ron Gloecker often single handedly design, write, and mail the Cutters Research Journal for all those years?

Consider the contribution of time, energy, expertise, and personal resources that all our volunteers give to make USITT work. Especially when the volunteers have to hit the ball and then amidst criticism and anticipated catastrophe, often have to drag the entire team to the next base! There really is only one reason.

USITT is our organization.

We are all stake-holders in the health of this organization. The members are USITT.

All too often I hear USITT discussed as if it is some corporate entity like IBM or Exxon. We are a group of like-minded folks with shared interests and needs who have created an impressive organization over several decades.

We do this for each other, because we believe in the art-form that we work in, and because by our very nature we are team collaborators. We do this because it allows us to have friends all over the country.

I am intensely proud of what USITT is and what we have accomplished. The successes of all of the volunteers have brought us to where we are today. I have learned one important thing as a department chair of 17 years. Pick good people and get out of their way.

The real pleasure in being President of USITT is seeing others succeed. It has been two great years for me, and I hope for all of the volunteers who make USITT the success story it continues to be.

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