Election Central 2010
The candidates and the issues in the 2010 election for National Board seats.
Quick links
Background
The National Board has 15 members, who must be General Members of ASMP. Each board member serves a three-year term, and the terms are staggered so that five members are up for election each year. A board member can run for reelection, but cannot serve more than two terms (6 years) in a row.
Unlike many organizations, in ASMP there is no nominating process. Rather, candidates for office declare their own candidacy by filing this form (PDF). The declaration must be received in the National office by December 31.
An essay by past ASMP President Reagan Bradshaw offers an excellent view of the responsibilities and rewards of board service. Read the essay.
Election Results
In accordance with ASMP’s Constitution and By-laws, the ballots for the election of new directors were counted on March 16 at ASMP’s offices. There were 10 candidates running for 5 seats. The candidates are listed here in the same order in which their names appeared on the ballot. The number following each name indicates the number of votes received by that candidate, and the 5 winners are indicated by asterisks:
| Charles Callaghan | 250 | |
| Kevin Lock | 488 | * |
| Scott Highton | 340 | |
| Matthew Pace | 466 | |
| Larry Gatz | 330 | |
| Keith Douglas | 287 | |
| Steve Whittaker | 565 | * |
| Shawn Henry | 579 | * |
| Richard Kelly | 609 | * |
| Joseph Pobereskin | 536 | * |
There were 22 paper ballots received and 957 members voted electronically. All votes that were cast were valid and included in the vote count.
The new board members will begin their terms at the time of the next Board meeting, which will be the weekend of April 16-18.
Prior to the meeting, the sitting board elects the officers who will serve for the coming year. For the 2010-11 year, the officers will be:
- President — Richard Kelly
- First vice president — Jim Cavanaugh
- Second vice president — Gail Mooney
- Treasurer — Todd Joyce
- Secretary — Shawn Henry
We congratulate the winning candidates, and we thank all of the candidates for their efforts and spirit of volunteerism that help keep ASMP the leading organization of its kind. It is this spirit that has made ASMP an effective advocate for the interests of its members for over 60 years.
The Candidates and Their Statements
The following 10 members have declared their intention to seek one of the five seats available on the national board of directors.
| Name | Resides | Chapter | links open in a new window | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Callaghan | Doylestown, PA | Philadelphia | Ballot statement | Q&A answers |
| * Kevin Lock | San Diego, CA | San Diego | Ballot statement | Q&A answers |
| Scott Highton | San Carlos, CA | Northern California | Ballot statement | Q&A answers |
| * Matthew Pace | Miami, FL | South Florida | Ballot statement | Q&A answers |
| Larry Gatz | Miami, FL | South Florida | Ballot statement | Q&A answers |
| Keith Douglas | Fort Lauderdale, FL | South Florida | Ballot statement | Q&A answers |
| * Steve Whittaker | Foster City, CA | Northern California | Ballot statement | Q&A answers |
| * Shawn Henry | Gloucester, MA | New England | Ballot statement | Q&A answers |
| * Richard Kelly | Pittsburgh, PA | Pittsburgh | Ballot statement | Q&A answers |
| * Joseph Pobereskin | Deerfield, IL | Chicago/Midwest | Ballot statement | Q&A answers |
* indicates recommendation of the Governance Committee.
2010 Election Timetable
December 1-31, 2009: Candidates declare their intent to run for office.
Friday, January 15, 2010: Deadline for candidates to provide their ballot information and statements. Each candidate’s statement is limited to 500 words and will be part of the ballot material that goes to all voting members. Candidates may seek the endorsement of other ASMP members and include the endorsers’ names in their official statements.
Before that deadline, candidates' endorsers may furnish supplemental information that is published only on this web site (and has its own word-count limit). Many members find that the extra statements are helpful. The supplemental endorsements are displayed with each candidate's ballot statement.
Meanwhile, all voting members are encouraged to ask public questions for the candidates to answer. The rules for the Q & A are shown below.
Monday, February 15: Deadline for sending ballots to all voting members in good standing. Members must return their ballots in time to be received at the national office on or before March 15.
Monday, March 15: Deadline for ballots to be received back at the national office.
Tuesday, March 16: (First business day after the deadline.) Ballots are counted. After the votes have been counted and verified, the candidates are notified, and then the results are published to the membership.
Candidate Q & A
Are the candidates addressing your concerns? In mid-January, staff in the National Office solicited questions from all ASMP voting members. The questions were boiled down to the few you see below and posed to all the candidates. As specified in the Rules, all the answers were posted at once.
The Questions for the Candidates
What is ASMP’s role as a trade organization in helping members manage the decline in the photography industry?
How valuable do you think Find A Photographer is for members? Should ASMP continue to promote Find A Photographer on a regular basis?
Some older members have said that, in the past, ASMP members would do presentations and submit work for publication for ASMP for free if it was for the benefit of fellow ASMP members. To a certain extent, this seems to have changed. What is your opinion on this subject?
What are the biggest challenges photographers are facing today, and how do you think ASMP can help?
How should ASMP stay current with the changes in how we communicate?
Directors serve for 3 years, or 6 years if reelected. How do you see ASMP 3 years from now? 6 years from now?
Do you believe that a potential national board member should be required to have leadership experience on the local chapter level?
Where do you stand on the issue of ASMP hiring current or former members of the board of directors? If payments are made, how would you report them to the membership? Should all proposed work be bid out to the membership at large?
What is your stance on copyright issues? In particular, is there a place for copyright in the “new” economy?
How do you propose to better serve those loyal members who live too far away to make regular weeknight meetings in the big cities?
Do you feel that chapters should received increased support? If so, how do you propose structuring it?
Rules for 2010 Candidate Q & A
This Q & A has been created as part of the effort to better inform the ASMP electorate as to the qualifications and merits of the various candidates for national board service in the 2010 election. It has been structured to balance that communication need with the time demands that could be reasonably placed on candidates responding to questions in an organization with more than 3,000 voting members.
The Q & A will become operational, and the candidates’ ballot statements will appear on the ASMP web site, on or about January 30.
Members of ASMP who are entitled to vote in this election may submit questions for response by the candidates by sending e-mail to electionqa@asmp.org. The editors of this Q & A, Eugene Mopsik and Victor Perlman, will verify that the sender is a voting member before proceeding with any question submitted. The questions will be addressed to the candidates, generally, for response by any or all of them who choose to respond. Questions will not be attributed to any individual member or members. Questions may be submitted only by using the electionqa@asmp.org e-mail address and they may not be sent directly to the editors.
The number of questions that will be posted will be determined by the editors, based on such criteria as the volume and content of the questions submitted. Not all questions that are submitted will be posted.
All questions submitted will be reviewed, selected and edited for clarity, balance, propriety and form, and may not be posted in exactly the form in which they were submitted. Questions submitted may be posted in whole or in part; may be edited by the editors; may be combined with other, similar questions, or may be rejected entirely. Members submitting questions will not receive a report as to the disposition of their questions or the reasons for it, other than seeing what questions are posted. All decisions of the editors will be final. The editors are not permitted to engage in political discussions or discussions as to the merits of the individual candidates. They will remain neutral.
Candidates may submit responses to any and all questions. As is required for ballot statements, responses will be reviewed only by ASMP’s legal counsel for legal issues and will not be edited, except by the respective candidates. However, it should go without saying that the customary rules of propriety and decorum will apply, and responses violating those rules will be sent back to the respective candidates for editing by the candidate before they will be posted. The decisions of ASMP’s legal counsel will be final. There are no word limits or other requirements on candidates’ responses.
Candidates must respond to those questions that they wish to answer within five (5) business days after those questions are posted. The editors will hold all candidates’ responses until the deadline has passed and will post all timely responses at the same time. The purpose of this deadline is to prevent any candidate from having the advantage of seeing his/her opponents’ responses before writing his/her own. To prevent unfair hardship, the editors have the discretion to waive the deadline and post late responses in extreme circumstances. The burden will be on a candidate who wishes to submit a late response to persuade the editors that a special exception would be warranted in the interests of fairness, and that candidate will be required to document the reasons for the lateness. The decisions of the editors will be final.
Members may submit follow-up questions or questions on new topics. All questions and answers will be subject to the same rules and procedures described above. The active period for this follow-up will end when the ballots are mailed and voting begins, on or before February 15. All ballot statements, questions and answers will remain on the ASMP Web site for member reference through March 15.
Members should always remember that directors seeking re-election are bound by fiduciary duties that do not apply to the other candidates, and they may not be able to answer, or answer as fully as their opponents, certain questions. In particular, questions relating to matters currently or previously before the Board may present issues that sitting Board members are simply not permitted to address without violating their legal and ethical duties as directors.