Committed to Being the Best	SUMMER 2004

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Each organization goes through lengthy "life" cycles just like people do. After growing and developing to a high point, an organization can reach a more static point. An organization at this point soundly begins to question its purpose and its progress. The TAMI board has had very productive discussions where these kinds of questions have been discussed in depth. With this letter I would like to spread out some of the board thoughts to our members for their consideration as well. Planning for our club's development, it is important to reflect on our purpose which is contained in our mission statement. We have the mission on our website (www.tami-mke.org). What leaps out is the educational underpinning that is in our mission. In the concise overall statement we Tami members are called to 'meet and exchange ideas'. That's education. Even more pointed are the sub points where education is mentioned in three separate statements: We educate and bring together those in the Wisconsin area who are interested in, or employed in the transportation industry. We promote and develop greater understanding of the different modes of transportation affecting all citizens of our Metroplex. We promote continuing transportation education Even other pages of our website say that a benefit of membership is educational programs. Our board members discussed the need to bring a renewed emphasis to our educational efforts. To be a healthy industry club, we need support from transportation providing companies as well as shipper companies. These companies would have a right to expect that if they subsidize the attendance of their employees to a TAMI function, those employees will return having been exposed to new ideas, valuable industry contacts, and better ways to do their jobs. We should be aim to be a club that grows by providing acknowledged educational programs. In life-cycle terms, clubs also need to leverage organizational wisdom. This includes strong planning and having good management discipline to carry through on those plans. We think that if an educational program is structured into the yearly program of TAMI, members and transportation professionals will come to rely on these presentations as an educational highlight. Another programmatic change we considered was more centrally locating our programs to make them more accessible to transportation professionals throughout the Metroplex (because our mission statement specifies serving our Metroplex and Wisconsin). I am very pleased to announce a real coup by Sharon Glen of CITI Group Truck Rentals. She has secured Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to speak to the club in November (November 18th). Following our mission, we can expect Mayor Barrett to discuss his views of Transportation in the Metroplex perhaps touching upon the interplay of politics and economic development. Invitations will be in the mail. This could be a very rewarding presentation. By then, Mayor Barrett should have been in office long enough to have a real good grounding in the challenges of transportation here. I am looking forward to this and I hope that many members and prospective new members will be there. Our venue, The Italian Community Center (downtown in the third ward) is central and has convenient parking. In my last letter, I asked for thoughts on supply chain presentations and got several very good suggestions. I advocate strongly that programs such as this need to be structured into our plans and that we want to serve the interests of our members. Please drop me or any board member a line or call me with suggestions for the frequency of programs like this and suggested topics. George Murphy