{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/348gf0pq3x/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Annette Hoel "]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine.  Disclaimer:  The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker’s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice. \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2005-10-13 (created)","2006-01-05 (other)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral History"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Don Ivey (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["audio file"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["family medicine","family physician","American Academy of Family Physicians"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Annette Hoel (personal name)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine. \u0026nbsp;Disclaimer: \u0026nbsp;The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker\u0026rsquo;s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284074","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 3 - Hoel_Annette_Pt_1_05.wav"]},"duration":1783.50852,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284074/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284074/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/284/074/original/Hoel_Annette_Pt_1_05.wav?1754513114","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":1783.50852,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284074","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284074/transcript/82314","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Annette Hoel Interview transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284074/transcript/82314/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"(Tape 1, Side B) (Recording begins; part of interview not recorded?) \n\n…Anyway, in ’92 after Ed left, Bill selected Mickey Schaefer for the Division Director position. And at the time I was very upset about it but things have a way of working out and it was probably the best thing that happened. Mickey and I became good friends. I couldn’t have asked for anybody better to work with. She was a great champion for Meetings and Conventions, it just worked out fine. Within six months I knew it was all going to be fine and we had somebody that we could work with so I learned a lot, working with her and we got along great. Still are good friends to this day. That first six months there was a little bit dicey, as you can imagine, a little territory issue but we worked through that. Much of it, I give her credit for the way she handled the whole thing, she was very classy about the whole thing.\n\nAnyway, when Bill Myers left, I forget the year, maybe ’97, maybe even ’96; ’96 or ’97, Mickey became Vice President, moved up in Bill’s position of Vice President. Then she made me Division Director at that time. I remember having a conversation with her and telling her that I would be interested in the position but I would not be interested, in any way, shape or form, being Convention Manager. I said, if you or Dr. Graham have any visions of combining this position and including both the Division Director and Convention Manager into one position, I’m not interested and I’ll just stay doing what I’m doing. No hard feelings, absolutely. It’s too much for one person to do and do well, I think. I guess if you wanted to work 60, 70 hours a week you could but I didn’t want to. That’s too much for one person. What bothers me now is they’ve done that when I left. That’s one of the reasons I left, they had made that decision to combine the two things.\n\nWhen did that happen?\n\nIt happened just a month ago, two months ago.\n\nRight before you retired.  \n\nWell, I didn’t really retire I guess, they eliminated my job by combining Convention Manager and Meetings and Conventions Division into one. Could have been made to work okay if they’d had sufficient [staff] in the right positions to make that happen but there’s going to be a lot of turmoil until they can get that sorted out.\n\nWhat staff do you think they’ll need for that?\n\nThey need an Assistant Convention Manager that’s strong or they could call them Assistant Division Director that literally takes a good chunk of that. We’ve always had two people with key roles in managing the convention. It’s never been just one person managing the whole thing. I’m not talking about an administrative assistant or an M-2 Manager kind of helping out with a few things, I’m talking about somebody who can step up and help manage the convention. I’m just concerned how that’s going to work out. \n\nI thought one thing we’d talk about a little bit is the different people you’ve worked with and we talked a little bit about that. Some of the people that touched you over the years that have impressed you and why they impressed you. Of course you talked a little bit about your first boss. Can you tell us a little bit about Mr. Nyberg, maybe?\n\nYes. Mr. Nyberg was very much a gentleman and he was a gentle man. He was a great big, tall, lanky Swede and he was extremely organized. He taught me a lot about how to organize things, how to prepare. I thought it was interesting, at some point in time he was telling me about he was involved…he was in the Navy in World War II and he was telling me about how he spent all these months on a ship when they were planning the Normandy invasion and I thought, that’s why you’re so organized in here. He had a way of cutting through the chaff and getting to the point of things. That’s’ one think I remember about him, he was very easygoing but very organized but very firm about how he wanted things done. Very much old school, which was what I was used to so it suited me fine. \n\nWho else touched you during all those years that you were here? Who do you remember?\n\nDifferent people, you learn different things from, I guess. In the early years Helen Cobb, learned a lot from her. She was an extremely hard worker, high quality, old-fashioned work ethic. Very interesting lady, very dedicated.\n\nOf course, Mr. Cahal, he was a very professional person. I think I learned a lot from him, from afar. I observed how people do.   \n\nMike Miller, I think he was about a year or two older than me but he came to the Academy right out of law school, I think, and I was already there, just a youngster. But through the years I would say, he probably had as much influence from the culture in this building and in this place than anyone I know.   \n\nHow so?\n\nHe played hard but he worked extremely hard. He had a way of knowing what was right and what was fair and he didn’t mind standing up and saying so. He was good with words, good with logical thinking. He was dedicated to the Academy and he was dedicated to doing a good job. No matter how hard he played or how much fun we all had, somehow or other the job always came first and he was a staff advocate. I don’t know if you’ve been here long enough yet to hear the term “Miller Time.” \n\nOh yeah.  \n\nThat’s where it comes from.\n\nDid he institute that?  \n\nNo. It comes from a joke because Mike would be the last person in this building to close when it snowed or iced or stormed or anything and we’re all sitting there going, Mike, let us go home, it’s snowing like crazy, can’t we leave? He was just, “No, you have to stay here and work.” He was just that way. He said, “The first person that calls me, we’re going to stay longer.” So one day, out of the blue, it was a beautiful spring day and he gave everybody the afternoon off on account of the weather, he said.   \n\nWas he the Acting EVP at this time?\n\nNo, but I think Bob Graham was out of town or something, he was the Deputy. But everybody was…it was like shock that Mike would close the office on a beautiful spring day and let everybody go home. We called it “Miller Time.” I think he only did that once but that’s where it came from. It’s a serendipity thing, it’s something out of the blue, just because, kind of thing. \n\nI guess after he died they perpetuated that?  \n\nYes. It’s basically in memory of him. There’s a big hole in this place without him here. I still feel it and that was five years ago. It’s definitely made a difference in our culture here, without him. \n\nLet’s talk a little bit about Roger Tusken, you mentioned him. What was your experience with him? He came after Mac Cahal, right? He was the second EVP.\n\nRight. That was in ’71 when Mac left. Roger could be a very difficult person, he’s very volatile, he’s a bohemian and we joked about that at times with his volatility.\n\nHow was he difficult?\n\nHe was in your face, he’d yell, stomp. He could be very challenging. I don’t know, he was very…\n\nIntimidating?  \n\nYes, very much so, absolutely. But at the same there was a part of him that would show where he was very compassionate and he very much cared about the welfare of his staff. He had that side to him. But I think it was just a basic personality, the way he was and his background. He was very loud or boisterous or challenging you. He yelled. It kind of went too far with drinking and stuff like that. When he’d drink at lunch he’d come back and you could really see the change in personality then, so that started creating problems in the later years he was there. I think he always had the best interest of the Academy at heart, I never would have doubted that for a minute. Took his job very seriously. We all knew, it’s something you accept, a person’s personality and you try to work around it and stay on your toes and get your job done. That’s what we all did. But he would party and laugh and joke and everything just as hard as everybody else. He’d be right in the middle of activities like that, but the next day just be dead serious about whatever work he was doing. You just had to learn the rules and behavior that he expected. I think he tried to be fair and tried to do the right thing, as far as people’s jobs and their work assignments and things like that. He was okay with that. It was that volatile personality though that kept us on our toes. \n\nWe talked a little bit about Mike Miller. What about the person that succeeded him, Bob Graham? Did you work much with him?\n\nYes, some. In the early days I reported directly to him, right after he came but as time went by he put in more structure. I was a couple layers away from him so I wasn’t directly working for him day in and day out. I was around him quite a bit. I like him a lot. I admired his mind, I admired his ideas, he had a lot of vision for the Academy, had a bigger scope of what we were here for and what we were trying to do and he put in a lot more businesslike processes that we needed. I don’t know, he was a very pleasant person to deal with. He was very smart. He could see things and read things and I trusted his judgment very much, I really did. I always felt like…I never had to second-guess a decision he made. You know how sometimes you may be working for someone and they tell you to do something, they’ve made a decision and you know it’s probably not the right thing to do? You’re kind of, eh. But I never felt that with him, I always felt like he considered it carefully, whatever it was and he made a good decision. That’s the way it appeared to me, from where I was sitting. He’s a very unassuming kind of person. He didn’t flaunt his rank. I think he was a little bit shy sometimes about socializing in small groups. We would tease him a little bit about that and he was good-natured about it. We were used to somebody a little more flamboyant and he comes in and he’s very reserved and very much the gentleman.  \n\nHe was a different personality type than maybe the first three?\n\nOh, absolutely, yes, absolutely. Very much so. But still very pleasant, very nice about everything and approachable. He was approachable. ---- I’m not sure where we’re going with anything. \n\nHow about the present EVP, do you have much contact with him?\n\nI never had as much direct contact as I have had with earlier EVPs. Just the way he likes to work, I guess. He works more with the Vice Presidents and messages get carried to their Division Directors by the VPs, for the most part, unless he has a direct, specific thing. At least that’s the way it was in our division. Unless you needed something directly from us, and arrangement of some kind. \n\nI thought we could talk a little bit about the Presidents you’ve dealt with at the Academy. I’ve got a list here and I thought we could just go through it and just give your thoughts, your impressions, off the top of your head about the folks you’ve worked with. You started in ’65, so the first one you worked with was…\n\nAmos Johnson was going out that year, that was his last year. I remember him but I didn’t interact with him that much.\n\nCarroll Witten, I remember very clearly. He was very outgoing, very hyper little man, very involved in everything.\n\nDr. Burket, more laidback, very much a gentleman, very, very nice. \n\nMaynard Shapiro, he was quite a character. I’m not sure quite what to say about him. He and I used to joke back and forth quite a bit. He was Chairman of the Commission on Education at the very first meeting I went to for the Academy. It was at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. I was 21 years old and somewhat in awe of the whole process, sitting in a smoke-filled room with several doctors smoking cigars. My mama would have been worried about me, didn’t know where I was. But they were all very nice. My sister did come spend the weekend with me, just to make sure I was okay. In 1966, young women normally didn’t travel by themselves and go stay at hotels and go to meetings with all men there. Different world. \n\nEd Kowalewski, I remember him very well. I don’t remember working with him closely as I did with Dr. Shapiro, because of the commission connection, that’s how I knew Dr. Shapiro. I remember he was a very nice man. \n\nBill Lotterhos, I remember him very well. He was from Mississippi, of course this is my home state, so he and I chatted quite frequently, whenever we’d get a meeting together. I remember him serving two terms as Chairman of the Board to span, to cover the span when the Academy was trying to get approval for certification. He was Board Chair during that long process.\n\nJerry Wildgen, I remember him very well. He was a member of the Commission on Education when I was a Recording Secretary for a number of years and had done a lot of meetings with him. Very nice person.\n\nJim Grobe, I don’t remember him very well. I remember him, I just didn’t work with him that much. \n\nJim Price, knew him very well. Saw him at a lot of meetings. He had been around for years. Very, very nice, pleasant man.\n\nHerb Holden, he was in a lot of meetings I was at, as a Recording Secretary. Was around him quite a bit for a lot of years…a lot of years he was here.\n\nHerb Huffington, of course I remember him very well. Same deal. When I say, “in a lot of meeting,” I went to commission meetings, committee meetings, it seemed like we were going to meetings all the time. Mr. Nyberg called these guys, the officers, the Red Badges because they had a ribbon on there if they were an officer and still to this day it’s red and it says “Officer” on it. They were ex-officio members of the any commission or committee and they would show up at the commission or committee meetings and sit in. Mr. Nyberg used to say, I don’t know why you need all these red badges, let the committee do their job. But anyway, a lot of them were coming to the commission or committee so I was around them a lot. Herb Huffington died the year he was President-Elect, he never really took office as President. It was a very sad time. \n\nCarl Hall, I remember him very well. He was a big round fellow from West Virginia, I remember him singing a song, “West by God, Virginia” or something like that. \n\nLes Huffman, I remember him. Don’t remember working closely with him but I remember him. \n\nJack Kelly, I definitely remember him. ---- thing this man did for me, he literally saved my life. I was staff control that went on a Post-Assembly meeting that we had, a tour, to Hawaii after the San Francisco Assembly in 1978 and he was there, the officers always went on that Post-Assembly trip. I was out on the beach one day with a bunch of them and he noticed a large freckle on my chest. That night at the cocktail reception before dinner, I had on a low-cut dress and he came over to me and told me that that was melanoma on me and that I should go to the doctor immediately when I returned home and if I didn’t, if I couldn’t find somebody to take that off, he would find me. Which I did do, I did call the next week and I did take care of it. But he called Roger Tusken that next week and told him what he had said and told Roger to make sure that I didn’t let that go, that I got that taken care of. I did go to my doctor and my doctor sent me to a plastic surgeon and I have a six-inch scar now where they took that off. He was right. I could have let that go so easily. When I hear his name I think, oh thank you, Dr. Kelly. \n\nJack Stelmach, I think anybody that’s been here for very long will tell you, he was a much-liked President. He was such a gentleman and think the world of him. Was in a lot of meetings with him too. He’s right up there with the best. He lived here in Kansas City and was Director of the Family Practice Residency Program over at Baptist Hospital, Goppert Residency. Of course he’s retired from there now but they produced a lot of good family doctors to the area. \n\nDr. Derryberry, I remember him, lots of meetings, very nice. He always wore bow ties.\n\nSame way with Sam Nixon. One of the phrases Dr. Nixon used, a great big round guy, slicked-back black hair, big glasses, he had that Texas accent and he had a phrase, you’d say, “How you doing, Dr. Nixon?” He’d go, “I’m doin’ fine, I’m sitting up taking nourishment.” \n\nErnie Chaney, I remember Dr. Chaney, of course, he’s from Kansas, very nice. I enjoyed he and his wife. \n\nDr. Gehringer from Louisiana, yes, know him. I remember he got very ill shortly after he was President. His wife’s name is Myrtle, I remember her. She was a lot of fun. She worked with the Foundation on putting together a cookbook back then, she and some of the Board wives. \n\nHarmon Holverson, very nice man and his wife, Yvonne, spent a lot of time with them. A lot of these people that were President were active on commission and committees as commission or committee members before they ever ran for the Board of Directors and before they ever became President. So some of these people I knew from years of sitting around meeting tables and then they moved up to new positions. When I say I saw them in a lot of meetings, that’s what I mean. Through the years. It was a smaller, kind of a closer family kind of feeling, I think, with the Board and the commission and committee members. Maybe there’s a lot of that now, I’m just not as…I just haven’t been in that circle. That’s why it feels different to me. \n\nBob Higgins, I remember him. He was President at the time…I believe that’s when Roger left, ’84. I never knew him very well. He seemed very nice, I just didn’t know him very well. \n\nDick Inskip, he was a lot of fun, he’d been around for a long time and I think he was a good President. He seemed to spend a lot of time with the staff. He was always hanging out with us whenever we were out of town. \n\nBob Taylor, I worked with him on the Commission on Healthcare Services a lot and saw him at many meetings through lots of years and his wife, Ann. Enjoyed them very much. Very, very nice. \n\nDr. Metcalf, I didn’t work with him as closely but naturally remember him being on the Board and everything. \n\nDr. Jim Jones, he was a crazy man. He was so friendly and nice to everybody, I thoroughly enjoyed him. \n\nKen Whittington, same way. He was so friendly and spent a lot of time with staff. He identified with staff members a lot. We enjoyed him very much. \n\nDr. Aukerman, I remember him but I don’t know, he was just kind of different and distant. I didn’t know him. Didn’t identify with him very much. \n\nMo Mellion, very nice, he’s from Omaha. Spent a lot of time in sports medicine activities. I remember he was working with our Education staff on some workshops and things. Very nice. \n\nDr. Tudor, I remember him but again, I didn’t have any special warm feelings here. He was a little standoffish and kind of, I don’t know, just didn’t click with me. \n\nBill Coleman, very warm person, very nice. Enjoyed working with him. Very considerate. He worked with staff, he identified with the staff very much. \n\nJim Weber, he was just wonderful. Such a kind, nice man. Really enjoyed working with him. \n\nDoug Henley, yes, I remember him as President. I think he was Chairman of the Board when we went through a big budget reduction exercise in ’95. Actually, I remember Dr. Henley through the years serving in different capacities as he was coming up through the ranks. And I remember, I think he was a resident or medical student in the early National Conference [of] Family Practice Residents and Students that we did. \n\nPatrick Harr, now we’re getting into the time when I’m a little bit further away from frequent contact with the President. Remember them but didn’t interact with them as much. \n\n(Tape 2, Side A)  \n\nWe just went through the list of the Presidents and I think you gave a great recap of the folks that you worked with. I thought maybe we could move on now to just the Academy in general and some of the things that happened during your time here. In 1971 the AAGP, American Academy of General Practice changed its name to what it is now, American Academy of Family Physicians. I wanted to ask you, do you recall that time, that period with the Academy both changed its name and moved into a specialty?\n\nYes, absolutely. \n\nWhat was the feeling in the air at that time? What was the sense here?\n\nWell, it was a sense of, I guess you’d call it, purpose maybe. It was a very focused time. I’m not sure at the time I understood the significance of what they were working on but I did feel that it was an important thing to be doing. I remember at the time thinking, well if they ever get this done and if I could ever pick up a Yellow Pages phone book and I could find a listing of family doctors in there under the title, Family Physicians, then maybe the public will know what we’ve done. Associations, it seems like your feet are in molasses. Everything goes so slow and it’s so hard for people to see what good you’ve done or maybe it’s like turning a battleship, which is so slow without getting anything done. I do remember that was a…I felt like it was a very significant thing we were trying to do and I could recognize that it was a very difficult thing to try to do. \n\nI think from what we were talking earlier, when you first came in 1965 it sounded like the discussions about the need for a specialty, that was going on even back then, six years before that.\n\nOh yeah. It took a long time to ever make this happen. I don’t remember all the details but I know when I came in ’65, I went to a Commission on Education meeting, these ideas were already out there and I didn’t understand what it was but within a year or two was hearing more about it. I do remember working on this application that they had to put together to apply to, I guess it was the American Board of Medical Specialties, I think was the organization, to get approval to form another specialty board. This application, I don’t know, a lot of people were working on it. I remember it was a big thing to get this application done and working on different aspects of it. One of the things that had to happen here is the Essentials of the family practice training program, a residency program. So they had to have a committee that was doing nothing but working on, what are the essentials of a family practice residency program? That’s a very definite term. It’s a very specific document. Each specialty has their “Essentials” that have to be approved by the, I don’t know, board specialty or the overarching group that does that. I guess it’s the American Board of Medical Specialties. We went through many drafts of the Essentials, trying to get all that done. It was a lot of work for a long time and kind of iffy and a lot of meetings and a lot of documentation, a lot of typing, a lot of copying. We were doing all that. Putting a lot of notebooks together to track all of that, which are gone now. It makes me sick to think that they’re lost. It’s too bad. \n\nLet’s talk a little bit about the different buildings you’ve worked in. There have been quite a few buildings since you first started. When you started it was at Volker at Brookside and you told us a little bit about that building. What were the buildings like?  Do you have any specific memories about any of them?\n\nOh yes. The building at Volker at Brookside had a very nice lobby with marble floor and big, beautiful reception desk. A lot of glass looking out on this front lawn. I remember in the springtime we had a lot of trees that bloomed. Downstairs we had a large, and we always used the term “dining room,” that goes back to Mac Cahal, having this image thing. It wasn’t a cafeteria, it wasn’t a lunch room, it was a dining room so we used terms like that liberally. The first floor was the magazine development, it was called GP back then. And the Board Room. The Board Room was very nice, pretty. On one side of it, it had floor to ceiling windows that opened out in this tiny little green area in the back of the building. They had the special-made oval board table that was made to mimic the shape that was also built in the ceiling, it was the same shape as the table, with lighting around this big oval. We moved that table to the building at 1740 [West 92nd Street] and built that ceiling to match it again. It was this humongous, solid, big, huge table. That was that building. It was very nice. \n\nWe moved to 1740 West 92nd Street. It was the old Yellow Freight headquarters. The top floor, west wing, had been used by Yellow Freight executives. The floor was very Spanish-looking, very heavy Spanish. Huge, big carved doors that opened into that area. There were six offices and a big file room in the back and we had a fireplace and the offices were huge. I would say they were probably about 16x16 [foot] squares with one wall of windows. The floor was large, dark, Spanish tiles and they weren’t smooth, they humped up a little bit. When the mail cart would come, it disturbed everybody and kind of shook the mail cart all over the place. The décor, obviously, was left over from the Yellow Freight Company and it wasn’t changed, we just stayed with it. At the time, people who came to visit went, oh my goodness. Did you waste all this money? Nope, it was here. We didn’t waste the money to do it. That was a three-level building, nice and for the first time we had enough room to kind of breathe. Over at Volker at Brookside we just had gotten so crowded there. I remember Bob Graham, that was his first tour of duty, so to speak, at the Academy, we were still at the Volker at Brookside building and he and Terry Schulte shared a six-foot table down in the library for months or maybe a year before we could move to the new building. People camped out everywhere. 1740 was a nice building, beautiful Board Room that they built. It had sufficient space and equipment to do our jobs. It wasn’t luxurious but it was nice. It was a very nice place. Huge lobby. I loved that big lobby because I was in charge of receptions and events that we had in the building and I loved having the space to do it. There was enough space outside, people could spill out a little bit and there was enough space to park buses without having to hire policemen and things, to direct traffic. At that time we did do a lot of open houses. We had meetings here in Kansas City, different workshops and conferences, it might be really simple, it wouldn’t be anything really fancy but like an open house kind of event so that our members could come out and see the building. It wasn’t unusual to have 100, 200, 300 people come out for an event. Residency students, when they had their annual conference, we usually had a party for them and it would be hamburgers and hot dogs and things like that. They camped out all over the lawn. That was always fun.\n\nThen when we moved from there in ’88, we moved to 8880 Ward Parkway. I never really liked that building that well. I’d never thought that that was a good move for us. I’ve always felt like it was sort of like fitting a square peg into a round hole, to put us in there. I did enjoy being connected to Ward Parkway Shopping Center. I did like going out the back door and straight into Dillard’s through the parking garage. We all liked that because we’d go shopping on our lunch hour. But the building, I think that was the start of feeling very compartmentalized within our departments and divisions because you didn’t walk through any area to get to another very much. Everything was just so compartmentalized, all the different divisions and departments. There wasn’t really anything physically wrong with it, I just felt like it was a bad layout. No lobby, none, just an elevator lobby. It was like you were walking into a medical building or something, reading the names on a list. Very cold feeling. It wasn’t very welcoming. It’s like, am I in the right place or not? What is this place? I don’t know, I just never liked that building. Seems like we had to make do. I remember after we moved in or right before we moved, they realized we didn’t have a freight elevator so they had to build one, a separate building kind of structure thing. Duh. No dock to receive all our stuff so I always felt like that was, I don’t know, I just didn’t ever agree with that decision to move to that building.  \n\nOf course we had this building built, the one here at 11400 Tomahawk Creek. It’s nice. It suits our purpose I think. They didn’t ask my opinion on the design but it’s okay. When I first moved here I felt like a high school, all the metal trim and everything. I think wood’s classier but I realize it costs more. In times past we had warmer atmospheres. I just felt like this was kind of industrial feeling but it’s functional and works fine. \n\nWe can talk a little bit more about the culture and the environment and how it’s changed in the 40 years you’ve been here. How has the work environment changed in the 40 years? From when you started to when you left.\n\nThat’s really hard to even get your arms around. It’s not just talking about the Academy, you’re talking about the world. In 40 years, how much people change and workforce changes and what people expect and the laws change and required. It’s so different, it’s hard to kind of describe it, I guess.\n\nDo you think the changes have been primarily societal or you’ve seen the changes within the Academy itself?\n\nIt’s probably both. When I first came to the Academy we were small, there were only like 60 or so employees. Mac Cahal had this environment or culture, I’m not sure what you’d call it but you were supposed to realize, it was a privilege to work here, you know? You were privileged to be here and you ought to just be grateful. You want a raise on top of that? His attitude toward women was, they were just working to fill their time. It wasn’t for careers or anything like that, their husbands were supposed to make the living. A little bit of a whomp [?] there on some of that attitude. Even at the time it was a little bit offensive, but whatever. I think one of the things about the culture from my standpoint and my little world that I lived in with staff was, with all the travel that we did together and particularly with the Assembly, that was a teambuilding thing that I don’t think there’s anything else quite like it. We knew each other so well and we saw each other at our worst and our best. We accepted each other with all of our warts. Even though we might have had differences or not agreed all the time, I don’t remember that we ever didn’t take care of one another. There was this feeling of, if we don’t hang together we’re going to hang separately so may as well stay in this together and work together. Particularly in the early days, it was a very tight-knit, close group. There were a lot of partying, there were a lot of late nights, there was a lot of hanging out in the lobby bar after meetings and all of that. But I don’t remember there was anything bad about any of that. It was more socializing, letting your hair down after a hard, hard day and we did work hard. I mean, that Assembly, I couldn’t do it again. The workers today wouldn’t do it the way we had to do it back then. I just couldn’t imagine that they would. It wasn’t unusual to work around the clock to get something done in 24 hours, be up for 36 hours, at least once during the convention to get something done. But we’d laugh and talk and kind of helped each other out, had good feelings. Even now, some of us old-timers can get together and we’ll start talking about some of the crazy things that somebody did but it’s always done with affection, you know? It’s not like “making fun of people” because you were there. You were just sort of in on it, the crazy things people would do. Even some of the stuff Roger would do. I remember once hearing the next day, there was a poker game going on with Roger and Ed Daleske and I can’t remember, five or six of the guys. Roger was drunk, which was not unusual for him but he grabbed Ed Daleske by his tie and was shaking him, screaming at him. Of course the next day they’re fine. That’s just an example of some of the craziness that could go on back then. But I think we all knew each other so well because of the travel and working together so much, even though it may only be a once a year kind of thing to do stuff like that. When you’re trying to get a job done and you’re working all hours of the day and night, you’ve got to depend on your coworkers and we did, everybody pulled through. Because if somebody didn’t do their job, somebody else had to do it and that’s when the rankle would come, if you didn’t come through with your job. If you didn’t get your work done and somebody else had to do it for you, that created bad feelings. That didn’t happen very often.\n\nOne thing I wanted to ask about the socializing over the years was, there was a thing for many years called Tea Time. Do you remember that?\n\nOh yes, absolutely. Actually it was just afternoon break and that was another thing that Mac Cahal had, like calling it the dining room and you didn’t have a coffee break, you had Tea Time. That spin to class it up a little bit, it was just an afternoon coffee break is all it was.\n\nI’ve heard for that period of time, I think it was around 15, 20 minutes, people were playing cards and socializing and all the barriers were down.\n\nOh yes, absolutely. Everybody left. You didn’t worry about covering your phones, Sue Helmers was coming to the switchboard and she took messages. Everybody basically went. You didn’t have to go but I’d say 95% of everybody, at 3:00 you got up from your desk and went down to the dining room and sat around and talked. There were little square tables everywhere and if you didn’t want tea, there was coffee or whatever you wanted. There were several tables of bridge. They’d just pick right up from the day before. \n\nWhy did that go away?\n\nThat’s a good question. I think we got larger and when you grow and bring in different and new people, I don’t know, I guess it gradually went that way.   \n\nWhen did it disappear? Do you recall?\n\nI think it’s probably after we moved to 8880 Ward Parkway. It changed after we moved to 1740 but I can still remember that dining room being full of people in the afternoon at 3:00. Not everybody because we couldn’t all fit in there, for one thing, but I remember it being full with the television on and all the tables would be full in there at 3:00 in the afternoon, people taking their break. I also remember Roger or whoever, having to send admonitions every once in awhile. “Tea Time ends promptly at 3:20 and you’re supposed to go back to work.” Because people would extend it a little bit. I remember at 8880, of course we didn’t have what I’d call, a nice dining room anymore. It was just a long, dull room on the third floor with some vending machines. It just wasn’t very appealing, I guess. It was all right but it just wasn’t very appealing. And I think the structure of that building just gradually, people were more compartmentalized. I’m guessing that’s why gradually, everybody’s in their own little pods, so to speak and pulled back from it. \n\nYou mentioned things got a little more compartmentalized over the years so I wanted to ask, what do you think the Academy is doing better nowadays than it was doing when you first started and what do you feel the Academy is not doing as well? What direction do you think, we’re heading in a good direction or a bad direction? What are your feelings on that?\n\nAs far as what we’re doing better than we were 40 years ago, we’re looking out for the rights of the employees a whole lot better. That’s just not the Academy, I think the federal government has something to do with that too. I think there’s more consistency probably in our policies and benefits and things like that. We have more things in place, like the salary administration program so that it is fair and job descriptions, those kinds of things are of course, much better than they were in the early days. In the early days it was pretty loose. If somebody liked you, you might get a raise and if they didn’t, you wouldn’t. That kind of thing. There’s not as much played favorites now as there probably was back then. And what was the other thing? \n\nWhat do you feel the Academy is not doing as well as it did 40 years ago?\n\nI don’t know. It’s hard to know. I know it’s so different and I know that it’s changed and I know that we’ve lost that feeling of family but I’m not sure how to describe it as to why or when and who caused it. \n\nIt’s gradual.  \n\nIt’s just been such a gradual culture change. Some of I think is just natural with growth. The more people you have, the more systems you need in place to keep thinks in order. I don’t know that there’s anything necessarily unfair about anything that we’re doing, it’s just different. I just don’t even know how to get back to what we had before, as far as the family feeling goes. Maybe we’re just too big for that. I think my feeling now is that we’ve become more corporate and association. I just don’t think there’s any way to fix it, myself. We just have to realize we’re a big business and get on with it and quit expecting us to have this touchy feely place around here. I don’t think we ever will again. \n\nYou just think that’s a natural part of the growth. A natural product of that?\n\nI think it’s an outgrowth of the decisions that have been made recently, what priorities there are and things like that.\n\nDo you think the priorities or the direction that the Academy is heading in or being heading the last few years is appropriate? Or have they kind of lost their way?\n\nI think the people that are visionaries in the Academy are doing good things out there, for the members and for the public. I think their hearts are in the right place and I think they want to do good things and they are doing good things. I think they have some wonderful ideas and I’ve always felt like the Academy is fortunate that somehow these leaders come to the top when we need them. We’ve always had good people that’s helped us guide what we were doing that had good ideas like getting the specialty approved. I look at that list or that display of all the people that were involved in that in the past and I think, what wonderful people they were to give so much and to help us be where we are as far as the specialty goes. I think that the Academy from what I know and I haven’t been that directly involved in on my job, but they’re doing good things about working for our members and they’re trying to do, like the Future of Family Medicine Project. All those things, those things remind me of what we were trying to do back in the ‘60s. They’re trying to make it better, trying to do bigger and better things for the specialty. I think healthcare, as we all know, is a mess and somebody needs to do all they can to help. That’s not my world. I don’t have much input there and control over that. I’m an observer from those things because when I was working on Meetings and Conventions, I heard about those things ---- meetings and reports and things like that but I didn’t live it because that wasn’t my everyday world. I was more involved in the logistical side and support and providing service to people. I don’t know, I could feel the difference in the staff. I feel like a lot what I say may sound like sour grapes because of the way my departure from here came about so I don’t want to be too mouthy about some of that. I know that Dr. Henley has been very concerned about the culture of the organization and he’s pushed and shoved and tried everything he can with this committee to try to either define that culture or get this culture, whatever, to be more cooperative and supporting and all of those things that we had on that culture report. \n\nWhat committee is that?\n\nIt’s a committee of staff that was put together to define and identify the culture we aspire to, what we want it to be like, assume good intent, working well with others, the touchy, feely good stuff and how we all work together. Trust and right now I’m kind of blank on a lot of it. A whole bunch of things and they were all good, all good stuff if they were all perfect. At the same time, when you hear staff talking about, and this is what the line staff says, it’s all about money, it’s all about how much things cost, how much money you make, you need to make a profit, money, money, money, money. I think with bringing in Donna Valponi it was like standing on top of the building and waving a red flag and saying, we have now changed to a corporate culture, we are no longer an association culture.\n\nAnd it wasn’t so in the early days…\n\n(Tape 2, Side B)\n\nBut I did want to ask, just to follow up on that last point, the early days, it wasn’t so money-oriented.\n\nNo. Well, you had to be judicious in management of money. The Academy’s always been like that. It didn’t seem like…I don’t know how to describe it. You have to justify everything and that doesn’t sound quite right, of course you have to justify what you’re asking for but it’s like making money takes precedent over customer service or member service or providing a service at a break-even point, or maybe even less because it’s a good thing to do. We’re here to do good things, we’re here to provide member service. We’re not here to make money. \n\nIs that a feeling you think that’s been lost over the years?\n\nYes.   \n\nAnd that was the number one thing before?\n\nI think for some people it has, yes. Some people don’t understand the part about member service comes first. In my little group of people and not too many years ago we were beat over the head with that idea. It didn’t matter whether you’re comfortable or not. If you’re doing something for the member, this is what you do. You just do it anyway. You go the extra mile, you spend the extra dollar, you do whatever it takes to take care of the members and you’re empowered, up to a point, to make it right. With us being on the front line and registration and things like that, we were, we’d do whatever we could. It’s a general feeling, observation I have like some of that’s been lost. I don’t think that a lot of people are even aware of it. They don’t even realize that it’s different. I’m speaking just from my world, what I know. I don’t know what happened to other divisions and departments. They may just be over the top with member services. It’s a fairly recent thing, bringing in a corporate marketing manager that has no association experience, that knows nothing about meetings and conventions, who didn’t seem to be interested in finding out, the actual inner workings of it and how…we were treated like we’re just a product to showcase, to sell. It’s all about how we looked and how we can sell ourselves. That’s an important little ingredient in there but that’s not our purpose. Our purpose is to provide a service to members and that’s what I thought was lost. We became a product to sell, all about what we looked like, not what we were doing and how we were doing it. I feel very strongly about that. Very angry about that, allowed to happen. I feel like what we had built over the years got lost by someone within three months’ time, I felt like she just wiped it out. I’m angry that it was allowed to happen. I don’t think it was right but there’s nothing I can do about it. I just hope those that are left can carry the flag for awhile until maybe upper management will see that people down there need help. The staff that’s left needs help. \n\nWhat would your recommendations be from your division standpoint? What would you recommend to new people coming in?\n\nYou mean into Meetings and Conventions?\n\nYes.  \n\nI don’t know what I would say to them. I just don’t know. \n\nYou’ve said, they need more help there and that you need a strong person.\n\nOh, they need more support to recognize what they do. In Meeting Services I know, because we’d worked on a job justification thing but understand that’s not going to happen now. Not only that, they took away a person, even though we were already one short, they’ve since taken one away. It’s just a lack of understanding of the work and the volume of it and what goes into doing what they do. It just shows a total lack of understanding from my point of view. They see it differently. \n\nDo you think there’s a disconnect or a kink in the communication channels?\n\nYes, absolutely. Like a big one. \n\nThe message is being filtered up or down or however?\n\nYes. I think that’s absolutely right. Like La-La Land. Literally, Doug and Todd hired the stranger to our whole culture, to the association world and everything we stand for, total stranger, put her in a position and turned her loose with no safeguards or checking that I know about. No one ever spoke to me about anything. Nothing. No questions, no how are you doing? Nothing. That woman was allowed to run amok, still is as far as I know. It’s scary. I didn’t even intend to even say anything about this today, it just came out. Because it’s over and done, there’s nothing I can do about it and I have to just quit worrying about it. You hate to see something like that go down the tubes that you’ve worked for, for 20 years or 25, whatever I did. I don’t think she has any concept of our standing in the meetings and conventions industry. The Academy is a leader. We’ve always been perceived. Mac Cahal founded the Professional Convention Management Association, which now is one of the biggest, most prestigious professional societies in the country that has to do with meetings and conventions. The Academy is known for the quality of the meetings they produce. It’s sort of like, when we speak people listen. That’s not going to last long. \n\nYour feeling is that she’s kind of failed to coordinate or communicate or to try to understand things from your perspective from all those years of your experience, what you really do and the importance of things and how to promote it, that kind of thing?\n\nRight. She was more concerned with how our product looked and numbers, the measuring. How many dollars off we got on things, showing how good we are at doing our job by producing reports that show how many dollars we average getting off-rack. How much did we save doing this? To show Dr. Henley our work, so we could show him and illustrate, demonstrate, because we did this we saved this much money or, we did this and saved you this much money. We have that documentation but we didn’t feel it was necessary to go around waving it with a red flag, look how good we are. We didn’t think that was our total purpose for existence. We talked about the quality of what we do and all the systems we have in place. She said, oh that’s your thing, that’s not mine. Just flying around at a 50,000-foot level, dipping in every once in awhile just to ask a few questions, have a little meeting, gather some information and go back up to the 50,000-foot level thinking she can put all these pieces together and make it better. \n\nNot really understanding what the troops know.  \n\nAnd not understand the personalities of the people involved and the capabilities of what they have. You put two people together that may have the skill sets you’re looking for but if their people skills aren’t good or they hate each other’s guts, it’s not going to work. There’s more to know than shoving pieces around like a chess set. Chess pieces. I’d be interested a year from now to come back and find out what’s happened, where they all stand, how many of them are left.\n\nYou think there’s going to be repercussions from people leaving or turnover?\n\nI wouldn’t be surprised, I don’t know. They all need their jobs. It’s a unique thing. Meetings…the Academy in Kansas City, is the best place to work if you want to work in meetings and conventions, in the Kansas City area. They’re the best jobs, the best-paying jobs, the best-respected jobs. If you want to be a meeting planner the Academy’s the place to work. We’re the gorilla in town as far as that world. \n\nAnd you’re afraid that’s going to be undermined by some of the new policies.\n\nYes. It’ll lose respect. Absolutely. \n\nI know your timeframe is kind of short but I did want to ask you this. What kind of advice would you give to new employees coming into the Academy? People just starting. In order to be successful here, what do you feel a new employee should do or the way they should be or…?\n\nI don’t know that it would be any different than any other new job that you’d tell somebody. Just general advice about learning the job, learning what’s expected of you, putting in extra effort, doing a little bit more than you think is expected of you, going the extra mile. It’s like what any good supervisor would be looking for, the kind of employees. I think I would advise people to observe and learn the culture of your area but I think that’s good advice no matter where you go. That’s what any employer needs to do, learn what’s around them. That’s one thing Donna didn’t do. She didn’t spend enough time learning our culture and what’s expected, how people work. But on the other hand, maybe she didn’t care and that’s what she’s trying to change. She didn’t think the old way was a good way, she’ll save us from ourselves. \n\nOne other thing I wanted to ask you, what kept you here for 40 years?  \n\nI’ve often wondered that myself. Obviously when I came to work here I didn’t intend to do this. I thought I’d be here for two or three years and stay home and have babies. I wasn’t looking for a career, necessarily. I think it’s because there’s always been some kind of change going on but it’s been kind of gradual. I think the most boring time I had here was when I was working for Mr. Nyberg and there was a period of about four or five years there. I don’t know, it was just routine and boring and I was so ready to do something else, then this little meeting stuff started happening. On the meeting side, there’s always something different about it happening all the time. You’re working with different people, you’re going to different places, the industry changes, what’s needed changes, the Academy, what they need changes so your workload changes. I loved working on the Assembly. We’re always trying to make it better and there’s always another challenge. I remember every time I’d be in the middle of the Assembly I’d be making notes about what I was going to do better the next time. You always have another chance, you always have another chance to make this better. I was always excited about that and write notes and improving things and making checklists and all that. I don’t know, I just never got bored with that part. Of course, I was moved up and had more responsibility and made more money, it was just more attractive to stay. \n\nAre there any last thoughts you’d like to add? Now is your opportunity to share your thoughts about future generations listening to this tape or to set the record straight on anything or address anything you want to address that you feel is important.\n\nThat’s a big order. I just think I was very fortunate to stumble into this place, literally, back in 1965. Had no idea, really, what the organization stood for or was about. I just knew that it seemed to be a very nice place to work. I think it definitely has…I’m a different person, obviously, because I worked here. I was given opportunities that a young kid from Mississippi with one year of college, I’ve gone and done things that’s unimaginable for that kind of background. I’m very grateful for all those things, the travel and associating with such nice people for so many years. Some of the family doctors I worked with, I look down that list of all the Presidents, it makes me think of other things and times and places and dinner meetings and dinners, going to Jai alai games with a group of doctors. It added so much to my life. If I’d been working in the claims department at Blue Cross Blue Shield it wouldn’t have been nearly so interesting. I don’t know, it’s been a great life. I’ve always been very proud to say that I worked at the Academy. I’m still proud to say that, that I worked here all those years. I’d probably do it again. I would tweak a few things along the way, make it a little better. Some transitions were very difficult through the years. All in all it’s been a good place to be. That’s about as profound as I think I can get with it. \n\nThank you so much for taking time to talk with us.\n\nNo problem. \n\n(Tape 3, Side A)\n\nJanuary 5, 2006, my name is Don Ivey, I’m Manager of the Center for the History of Family Medicine and today, holding a follow-up interview with Annette Hoel. Just to recap, Annette, you retired last October, October of ’05.\n\nSeptember 15, that’s my 40th anniversary. \n\nSo your first day here was September 15th, 1965. Forty years. Your first position here was?\n\nI was Secretary to Ralston Hannas. They called him R Square, he was an MD. He was Director of what was then, I guess you would call it the Education Division, although it was just the two of us. We also did the Commission on Hospitals and some other things. I kind of joked, I used to be half of the Education Division part-time. They have dozens of people now. \n\nAt the end of your time here, what was your position?\n\nDirector of the Meetings and Conventions Division. I’ve been in that position I think, since about December of ’97, I think. Yes, must have been December of ’97. \n\nSince our previous tape didn’t record right our first section, I just wanted to get some more background information. Can you tell us a little bit about where you were born and where you grew up?\n\nYes. I was born in Mississippi, small town, my hometown is Quitman, it’s near Meridian. I lived there all my growing up years. I moved to Kansas City in 1965. My husband at the time had taken a job up here and that’s what got me to Kansas City. What got me to the Academy was my sister-in-law at the time, worked in the Membership Records Department and told me that they had a secretarial job opening if I wanted to come apply to it. \n\nPrevious to this you had worked in the secretarial field?\n\nYes. \n\nWhere did you work before?\n\nIn Mississippi I worked for two years at Blue Cross Blue Shield in Jackson, after one year of college I worked there.\n\nSo you had a little bit of background in the medical field, is that fair to say?\n\nWell, as close as working with Blue Cross Blue Shield, in that sense. \n\nNever worked for a physician, a family physician, GP.\n\nNo.\n\nYou mentioned when you first came here you worked with a gentleman [Ralston Hannas] that was the Director of the Education Division. He was one of the few MDs on staff, wasn’t he?\n\nI think at that time he was the only one. There had been others before him I think but he was the only one at that time. \n\nTell us a little bit about him, what was he like? What was it like to work with him?\n\nHe was very nice. I think anybody that knew him would describe him as quite a character. He was very bright and very interested in the specialty of family practice. Of course then it wasn’t a specialty but they were very much into trying to accomplish that. He was very nice to work for, a very kind man. One thing I remember most about him was, he always wore red socks. Just kind of a thing with him and his nickname was R Square.\n\nWhy did he get that nickname?\n\nHis name was Ralston Raymond Hannas so it’s RR, R2. Somebody called him R2 but it was really R Square, that’s what people called him. But he was here…I think I worked for him three or four years and then he left. \n\nWhat were your first duties when you started?\n\nCovering commission meetings, general secretarial work. The first Academy meeting I went to was at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia in October of ’65. It was a Commission on Education meeting. We didn’t have clusters, each commission or committee met on its own somewhere, however they decided where they needed to be. My second meeting was a Commission on Hospitals meeting a few weeks later at the Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego. For a young girl from Mississippi I thought this was a big deal, getting to go to these nice places. I was always impressed with how nice the people were, what gentlemen they were and how they looked out for me. In those days, a woman traveling alone, particularly a young, fairly attractive young lady, just wasn’t done that much. I remember back then, we traveled First Class on airlines and most of the time I would be the only woman in First Class. A lot of raised eyebrows and so forth when I’d go to check in at a hotel with my boss, Mr. Nyberg, later. He was my boss after 1968. He was old enough to be my grandfather. You could almost see the winks and nods. I’d be standing about two feet behind him while he checked in then I’d check in. They said, yeah, right. That’s the way the world was then. I just shrugged it off, I thought I was fortunate to be able to be doing what I was doing. \n\nWhat was it like in those early years to be a woman at the Academy? Now the Academy is predominantly female staff, I think that’s fair to say.\n\nIt was then too. \n\nWas it predominantly female as well then?  \n\nYes. I would say we had more women than men, overall. It’s hard for me to describe it I guess because that was just the world I lived in and I don’t know that the Academy was a whole lot different than any other place of employment. I feel like I was always treated with respect. There were just kind of odd little things like we weren’t allowed to wear slacks or pants. I remember the day Mr. Cahal issued the edict that it would now be okay for us to wear pantsuits, which were all the fashion at that time, but they had to be coordinated outfits. We couldn’t just wear slacks and a blouse, it had to be “an outfit.” \n\nWhen did that edict come down? Early ‘70s?\n\nIt had to be ‘70ish, somewhere along in there. I forget exactly.\n\nWere women in management positions in that period of time at the Academy?\n\nLet me think back. I’m only thinking of one, that would have been Claudene Clinton and she was Manager of, we called it the Library then. It really has evolved into Research and Information Services but back then it was two or three clerks and Claudene.\n\n---- essentially she ----- of the Center, it was really her brainchild.\n\nYes.\n\nI know we’ve talked in the past and you mentioned in some instances where you might have felt harassed in the early years and you don’t have to talk about specific individuals but were there instances where you felt as a woman, like you just mentioned previously, where you felt harassed or that you kind of hit a glass ceiling? Was there any kind of feeling like that?\n\nNo feeling of a glass ceiling but I think the culture in the world in general then was much different than it is now in the workplace. There were comments made, dirty jokes told. That was just sort of the way it was. You just sort of shrugged and went on. But yeah, I would say women back then did put up with a little discomfort at times. Wasn’t anything I didn’t feel like I couldn’t handle. \n\nIt wasn’t anything unusual here than any other place.\n\nNo. Right, I don’t think so. \n\nI’m kind of curious how you saw the change over the years. How did it change over the years?\n\nIt’s hard to pick a time when things change. When you’re living something, sometimes it’s a very gradual change in culture as it comes along. Of course usually when you see the biggest culture change is when the EVP changes that changes a lot of things when that happens. When Mac Cahal retired then Roger Tusken became…I think he was called Executive Director was the title back then. There was just change in structure and general atmosphere and a little bit in the culture there. He wasn’t as remote in working with staff members and relating to people. Mac was always a little bit more distant, particularly for the rank and file, the non-management people. I always felt you kind of were more tolerated than part of the team or being included in a lot of things. \n\nDid it feel more hierarchical, us and them kind of thing?\n\nI think so. It was a small organization. There were only 50 or 60 of us at that time and maybe 10 or 12 or so manager people so it was kind of a tightknit group. I don’t look back at it as a problem, that it was a big issue or anything, it was just the way it was. Then when Roger became Executive Director, we’d grown a little bit, things just gradually changed a little, but he had always been more “one of us,” I guess you would say and we felt like he was more involved with staff as people in their jobs. So that changed the culture a little bit. He was very volatile though. He had a very volatile personality. We used to joke about him being a crazy bohemian. He literally was Bohemian and he would admit this and laugh about it. He had a temper and wasn’t shy about showing it, yelling at people and flapping a little bit. We just learned to stay out of his way. It was very uncomfortable at times, frankly. \n\nDid you work with him very closely?\n\nAt times. When I first started working on meeting arrangements in 1978, I worked directly for him. That’s after Mr. Nyberg retired. After R Square left in about 1968 I think it was, then I became Secretary to, his title was Assistant Executive Director, and that was Chuck Nyberg. \n\nLet’s talk about him a little bit, I don’t want to forget him.\n\nHe was like, I don’t know, the third or fourth or so, Academy employee that Mac Cahal had hired. He started out, I think, back in the ‘30s working, I’m not sure, he was from Chicago. I think he worked for…I’m not sure if it was American College of Radiology, no, I think that was Mac in Radiology. I’m not sure, I can’t remember the name of the place that Mr. Nyberg came from. Anyway, Mac knew who he was and hired him to come down here to help him organize and form the American Academy. \n\nWas he an attorney?\n\nNo, he wasn’t an attorney. I think he had a degree but I think it was just in business. He was a great big, tall, lanky guy, very organized, very low-key, very soft-spoken. But he was very focused and straight and businesslike. \n\nHow long did you work for him?\n\nFrom 1968 until I think he retired at the end of 1979, so it was quite awhile. \n\nAbout eleven years.  \n\nYes. \n\nWas it an enjoyable association?\n\nOh yeah. He was really nice to work for. During those years I served as a Recording Secretary to numerous commissions and committees. With him being in his position, a lot of times he would get assigned a commission or a committee to manage if something new was created, or a task force. We did a lot of task forces, little ad hoc committee-type things Back in those days I traveled a lot, just to go to a committee meeting or a task force meeting or whatever. That was before we had the clusters and groups of committees assigned to meet at certain times. Then they were more likely to meet when they felt like they needed to meet a couple of times, like three times in a years’ time. \n\nThat was pretty much determined by the Board or the Chair?\n\nI think so, the Board and the Executive Director, I guess they would decide how that work was assigned. \n\nDid you work pretty closely with the Board Chairman?\n\nNot directly. I would see them at meetings and chat and visit and knew who they were and maybe talked to them by phone or get information for them or call them to get things. I wouldn’t say that I had a close relationship with any of them, more of a casual social, hello, how are you? Chit chat, talk at lunch at meetings, kind of relationship. Bit enough so that you got to know them as people. I knew them more as people, not as clinical physicians. I wouldn’t recognize most of them if they had a white coat on. \n\nDid you attend the meetings you sat in on?\n\nYes, I was Recording Secretary. \n\nSo you were familiar with the kind of issues they were dealing with and things like that?\n\nYes. That was a long time ago but yes, at that time.\n\nCan you give us an idea what the atmosphere was like? I’m assuming that every commission and committee kind of had its own personality of its own, strengths, weaknesses. Can you maybe tell us a little bit about the committees you worked with and what they were like to work with?\n\nLet me think back. There were a couple. The Committee on Requirements for Certification, they called it the CORC Committee. That was early on, like ’66, ‘67ish, along in there, or ’65 maybe. They were working on doing the application to become a specialty of family medicine, family practice. It was a committee that was coming up with those requirements for certification. The Commission on Education was another one that I went to their meetings for many years as a Recording Secretary. I always thought of them as a very hardworking group of people and a lot of ideas. Very nice people. They were dedicated to the Academy. I think some of their ideas and their work formed the basis of where we are today in the specialty. \n\nWhat kind of contributions did they make, in your mind?\n\nI remember being in Education Commission meetings where they talked about how to design a residency program in family practice, what does it look like, how do you train a generalist to become a specialist? What does the curriculum look like? They spent many hours talking about those things, drawing on the chalkboards, trying to get all of that worked out. That’s where they came up with the model family practice unit. That’s why family practice residencies now have a practice, a panel of real practice, a panel of patients like a doctor’s office would have. Ever since then I’ve always gone to a residency program for my care. I believe in it enough that I still do that. I’m on the panel. I feel like I get the best care that way, get the best of all worlds.\n\nYou mentioned also the Commission on Hospitals, that was one of the early ones you worked with.  What did they deal with?\n\nThat was early on. Hospital privileging issues. There was quite a bit of problem with that. That was one of the reasons they were trying to become a specialty I think, was to be more recognized. They were always having difficulties proving their capabilities, I guess, to get privileges in hospitals. That’s what I remember the most on Commission on Hospitals. I know there were other agenda items but I always think of the difficulty they had with getting privileges. \n\nWere there any major personalities that stick out in your mind that were members of these commissions? Some of the things they did, what they were like?\n\nOh gosh, I have to reach way back for that. I remember Jerry Wildgen. He became President later. He was on the Commission on Education for many years. Silas Grant from Texas, he was quite a character. Great big blustery guy with that Texas accent. He’d sit there and when he had something to say he’d take his fist and pound the table, not too hard but he kind of hit the table and say, “I guaran-goddamn-tee ya,” whatever point he was trying to make. I can’t think of other people right now. I can just see those rooms full of people. Back in those days, sometimes even smoke-filled rooms and cigars and cigarettes. I took a lot of shorthand. Oh my goodness, so much shorthand. Days and months of my life taking shorthand and transcribing notes. \n\nYou probably absorbed quite a bit about family medicine, general practice back then.\n\nYes. I always felt like I was very much an observer because as a Recording Secretary you don’t speak, it’s not your place. I sure heard a lot. Absorbed a lot of it, I guess over the years. \n\nLet’s go from there to, it was about ’79 when Mr. Nyberg retired. So you’d been with him eleven years. Primarily your focus with him was…\n\nCovering meetings was the main thing. He also was Human Resources Manager during that time. \n\nDid you get involved in the Human Resources aspect of things?\n\nWell, we kept the records, job applications and that kind of thing.   \n\nSo you kind of both wore a couple of different hats.\n\nYes. He was the main administrator of that over human resources. He was it. There wasn’t anybody else that did any human resources work. We also did Finance Committee meetings as Recording Secretary for several years. That was another major role that Mr. Nyberg had as Assistant Executive Director, was to work with the Accounting Division. I guess in a sense, instead of Mr. Tusken doing the detail of the agenda collections and putting all that together, Mr. Nyberg would do it and then I was his Secretary so I would end up involved in that whole process and then go to the meeting and do the notes and type up the minutes when I got back. Going to a Finance Committee meeting like that, it was an education because you knew what all was going on in the whole organization. I always felt like when I came out of there because we went over every budget, line item by line item, of course we don’t do that now because it’s too big but back then we went down every line item of the budget so you knew…\n\nHow often would they meet?\n\nAt least once, occasionally twice a year. It was really an education process for the doctors that were on the committee. You spent more time telling them than getting their approval on anything. It was a matter of explaining things to them so they could look and see what you’ve done and say, that’s okay or not, it’s not okay, you need to do that differently. Spent most of our time explaining what was what. \n\nAfter Mr. Nyberg retired, where did you go from there?\n\nAbout the year before he retired, Helen Cobb, who had been here for many years, passed away and she had always done meetings, the arrangements for the Academy’s meetings, contracts with hotels and setting up what we needed and we did all of the headquarters hotel functions for the Assembly, for the Congress of Delegates. \n\nWas it just her?\n\nYes.\n\nShe didn’t have a secretary?\n\nWell, she had a secretary, yes. I sat right outside her office next to her secretary. As she was becoming more ill and unable to do very many things, more things kept ending up on my desk somehow and I liked doing it, I was glad to do it, it was interesting to me because I was used to going to a lot of those meetings anyway. Then we didn’t have near the big meetings we do now. We didn’t have huge workshops and conferences and big clinical education programs and things like we do now all around the country. We had a lot of commission and committee meetings and the Assembly. It was a different world then but still, somebody had to make phone calls, had to set up the arrangements for all those things. We were just starting a little bit to do a couple of big workshops. That’s about the time they started the Program Directors Workshop, family practice residency program directors. I think we’d had a medical economics summit and a couple of things like that. Other than that, mostly the big annual convention and then the commission and committee meetings and Board meetings all over the country. So anyway, when Helen was having struggles covering all this stuff and we all knew what was going to happen, we could see it, Mr. Tusken asked me one time, what do you want to do when Chuck retires? He said, what kind of job do you think you want to do? We need to be thinking about where you can go. Mr. Nyberg had always told me, he said, you don’t want to take a job around here where you’ve got to train some junior executive. I said, this is true, I don’t want to do that again. When Roger asked me about that I said, I like working with Helen on those meetings. I said, maybe I could help do some of that. That just came off the top of my head. Well then, after that he started letting me do that. \n\nWhat was the title back then of that position?\n\nShe was, I guess Executive Assistant to the EVP. It would be sort of like Jo Rockufeler’s job here or Jodi, that position. That position that Jodi Belshe has now. It was that position. \n\nSo working directly with the…\n\nThe Executive Director or the Executive Vice President now. That was the position she was in. All arrangements went through them. If you were going out of town to a meeting or whatever, you went to Helen’s office and got your copy of the function forms and you were told, this is what you had, this is what you’re going to eat and this is what you’re going to drink, this is your meeting room. We called it, we had to go get our function forms from Helen so we’d know what to do when we got there. That was the start of it back then. It just gradually grew. We had more meetings and then the hotel industry, meetings industry has gradually gotten more complicated. You used to do a lot of things with a letter of agreement or a telephone call and they’d say fine and they’d send you a letter and say, we’ll see you when you get here and it’s gotten to the point now where we have an 18-page contract with all these protective clauses in it. It’s very much a dog-eat-dog kind of world out there. I’m concerned sometimes about making sure the Academy’s protected from the liability. I always made sure and the staff that was here when I left, we made sure those contracts were about as airtight as we could get them on hotels because you could end up with thousands and thousands of dollars owed in what’s called “attrition penalties” if you don’t pick up the room block that you guaranteed, you have to pay for them. You have 200 rooms and you only pick up 100, you may have to pay…the hotel would like you to pay for the other 100 but our contracts usually would only guarantee 70%. Industry standard was 85-90%. I always felt like we did a good job protecting the Academy’s interest. A lot of people just signed those contracts guaranteeing 90% of the room block and think that’s the way you do it. \n\n(Tape 3, Side B)\n\nYou went from, at the time you started in that function, being Executive Assistant to becoming a Director so obviously the responsibilities grew.\n\nI think I might have misunderstood there. When you said the title, I was talking about Helen Cobb’s title as Executive Assistant to the EVP. I wasn’t. When I started doing that, they called me Manager of Meeting Services.\n\nSo they re-titled it.  \n\nYes, made a new job, yes. They took that responsibility out of Helen’s job and gave it to me. There were other things she was doing that they gave to other people. Like she was Assistant Secretary to the Congress of Delegates and they took that part out and gave it to Claudene Clinton. As an Executive Assistant to the EVP, the woman had more work to do than she could get done. She was working nights and days but she was very protective and she wouldn’t give up any. It was a control and power issue of hers. It was painful to watch, what she did to herself. \n\nYou started out as the Manager with one person?\n\nJust me. \n\nYou didn’t have her secretaries.\n\nNo, just me. \n\nSo then you became a Division Director, is that right?\n\nRight. \n\nBy the time you retired how many people did you supervise?\n\nWhen I left in September there were twelve people. \n\nHow and why did it grow?\n\nIt started out with me, a typewriter and telephone, that was before computers and faxes. We had a few meetings, a lot of commissions and committees, a couple of workshops. I spent the first year or two educating myself on hotels and what was out there, how people did things. I talked to a lot of hotel people. Where I’ve learned the most was from some of the local hoteliers. I bought French cookbooks and learned how to read menus and what different kinds of sauces were so that I could order meals. I spent the first year or two just learning, educating myself. There wasn’t any place to go to find out about all this. There wasn’t a book to read or...I did go to the PCMA Professional Convention Management Association meetings but even that was a young organization then and just getting started. It didn’t have the stature that it does now, by any means. Anyway, it gradually grew by just the number of meetings the Academy needed to have, grew. It was a direct result of the Academy’s business expanding and doing more things and having more projects and every time you had a new project you had to have a meeting about it. It just gradually grew. I remember almost having to get on my knees and cry to get my first secretary. Literally. I was almost in tears because I was overworked. \n\nWhen was that?\n\nI lose track of the years, probably the early ‘80s. I did it for three or four years by myself. For awhile there I was even helping with some promotion pieces, which I knew nothing about. Getting some printing and artwork done. I used the people in the Production Department of the magazine [AFP] to help me. I don’t know, we struggled through it but I wasn’t an expert at that, we just kind of got by with trying to promote our young little meetings that we were just starting. It all worked out pretty good. But it just gradually grew. I got a secretary and then at some point the Administration Division did Housing and Registration for the annual convention and for the big resident and student meeting that we have every year in August that’s here in Kansas City. Remember, there were no computers. We weren’t computerized at this time, as far as that kind of work. It took a lot of hands, a lot of typing, a lot of telephones. When we first got a fax machine I thought it was a miracle because I didn’t have to depend on the U.S. Mail to meet a deadline. Used to have to mail reading lists a week ahead of time to make sure it was going to get there before the cut-off date for your room block. Now you just send them, either attach it to an email. Same day, it’s made a lot of difference. I’m kind of rambling. \n\nI’m curious, the automation, still you had to have a lot of help, you had twelve people by the time you left so the automation helped but you must have been handling an awful lot of responsibilities.\n\nYes, it was a lot of meetings, a lot of people, a lot of arrangements. The Administration Division was doing the Housing and Registration, the Director of that division, he had three people working for him that were the Housing and Registration clerks. That got to be a problem for him to manage. It was about maybe 1990, ’88 or ’90 that Bill Myers and Bob Graham, I think it was really Bill Myers proposed to Bob Graham and he approved, me taking over and managing the Housing and Registration part of meetings. So that happened, it was about 1988 or ’89. That expanded the Meeting Services Department to include not only meetings logistics but housing and registration. We operated like that for a few years until someone, I suppose it was Bill or whoever, decided that we needed a division of Meetings and Conventions. The decision was made to form a division. .\n\nWhen was that? Was it in ’97?\n\nNo, it was earlier than that, it was about 1990, something like that. I don’t think it was any later than that. Might have been ’89 or ’90 when it became a division. They decided to make Ed Daleske Director of that division. He, being male, I felt had something to do with that. Of course you didn’t say anything then. And his age too, he was getting closer to retirement. He did have a lot of experience in exhibits management and had been doing that for a number of years and he was Secretary to the committee that planned the Scientific Assembly Program. They made him Director of the division and then pulled me in for Meeting Services and then he was over exhibits. So that’s how we got Exhibits Management, Meeting Services for all the logistics and Housing and Registration. That’s how it evolved into you pull all these people together and the more work that there was, occasionally we’d get to add another person for specific department or function as more meetings were needed. Just takes more people to manage more meetings and meetings got a little bit more complicated too, more service that you do for people, more is expected. Just took more people to manage it all. And the industry got a little more complicated because hotels, it got more complicated to work with them through the years. They wanted more guarantees, they wanted more definite things and a lot of our people weren’t used to planning ahead very far and somebody’s just guessing at how many and what. It was a real balancing act, it still is, to figure out the person that’s planning the program part, what do they really need and then translating that into what’s actually going to happen onsite. It’s a dance. It’s a complicated dance sometimes to get that done. The people planning the program sometimes have never done a meeting before, they don’t understand. I always felt like our job was, we were there to help them and hold their hand and walk them through it. And then you have other people that have done many meetings for many years that think they should just be able to tell us what to do and we’re more order takers in that sense, so do it their way. We walked the tightrope quite a bit. \n\nYou had to adapt to a lot of different styles?\n\nYes. You had to be very adaptable, very customer service-oriented. It was difficult at times, very difficult. Sometimes I think we weren’t recognized for how good a job we did at pulling all that off. We made a lot of people look good and they never even knew if we hadn’t, how bad of trouble they’d have been in. \n\nYou had mentioned since December of ’97 you were the Director of the Division? \n\nYes. You want to know what happened in between there. When Ed Daleske retired in ’92, I remember he retired before the ’92 Assembly in San Diego and Bill Myers hired Mickey Schaefer as Director to replace Ed. That was a very difficult time for me because I thought I should have had the job since I’d started out with a typewriter and telephone and done all this I felt a little bit of ownership involved in the deal. \n\nWhy do you think they made that decision?\n\nProbably because Mickey was more outgoing, she had a broader base of experience, she’d worked for a convention bureau before she came there but she really didn’t have much experience with managing meetings. I know she wanted the job to become more involved in meetings and the profession outside the Academy. It was something she needed to have on her resume in order to make that step, like PCMA Presidency and things like that. When I look back on it now, it worked out just fine, it really did. Mickey and I developed a wonderful working relationship and it was, I think a benefit to both of us. I think we both came out of that very well. I’m grateful for how that all worked out. Sometimes you work through difficult times and you come out okay on the other side and I think I did. Then when Bill Myers left and she was promoted to be Vice President over Meetings and Convention Division, that’s when she made me Director of that division. I had been Assistant Director for several years at that point and she made me Director. \n\nOne thing I wanted to ask, you had said before that when you left last year, the Academy was really seen as kind of a standard in handling conventions. Why is that? Why was it seen as a standard? How did they get to be that way?\n\nIt’s attributable to a number of people. It really starts back in the 50s when Mac Cahal considered, and all professional associations at that time, considered their annual convention was one of the biggest things that an association did. That’s how a lot of them made their money, is off of that and the little dues. Even today a lot of small associations, they live and die by how much money they make off their meetings. But at the time, in the association world, it was a big deal, this annual convention thing. He recognized the importance of doing that well and he cared a lot about it. He, with a couple of other people, I can’t remember their names now, outside of the organization, that were involved with other associations I think, they formed the Professional Convention Management Association. It was just a few people that did that and it’s grown into this huge organization now that’s so well-respected in the meetings and conventions industry. But Mac started that and someone on the Academy staff has always been extremely, very much involved in that organization ever since. We’ve had like four presidents, Bill Myers was one of them, Roger Tusken was President of PCMA at one time, Bill Myers, then Mickey Schaefer was President. In that is a lot of networking. In the world we lived in, meetings and conventions world, this was a big thing. It’s a fairly small knit community and the Academy was always so well-respected because of a number of things, I think because of some people like Mickey and Bill and Roger through the years and also, we were respected by hoteliers I think, because we basically had our act together on how to give them information and we also were very hard negotiators, we were organized and detailed and I’ve heard so many times through the years, hoteliers would say, I cannot believe how wonderful this stuff is that you’re giving us. It is just so wonderful to have things organized like this. A lot of hotels are used to, a week before a meeting they’re scrambling just to make a client look good. I decided I didn’t think that was the right way to go and I always looked at hotels as, I was in partnership with them, I wasn’t competing with them. They have to do their job to make us look good so I thought if you get on the wrong side of them you end up with malicious obedience. People doing exactly what you say and that may not be what you want. Sometimes you get what you ask for. I’ve always looked at it as a partnership and I think people recognize that and the Academy’s thought of that way. I just hope it continues. I’m not sure how it’s going to be in the future. \n\nOne final question I wanted to ask. Looking back over your 40 years here, what are you proudest of? Do you have any regrets?\n\nRegrets, it’s hard to even think of anything special, particular. There’s nothing that jumps up. I guess you always could have done better or something but I don’t have any huge regrets that come to mind as far as the work I did.\n\nWhat are things you’d like to point to that you’re proudest of having accomplished here?\n\nI think putting together a team of professionals, a team of people that handle and manage the Academy’s meeting in a professional manner that should, I think, have brought recognition to the Academy, it makes the Academy look good, it’s served our members well and it was a struggle at times to make that happen because like I said, it’s a dance with the people you’re trying to do it for and sometimes you make them look good in spite of themselves. You have to know that and accept that and do it. You can’t fight with them too much about trying to take care of them. But yes, I’m proudest of the systems we put in place. I developed checklists that told people how to do things and most of it I learned the hard way and made up forms. I don’t know if they’re still using them, I hope they are, that was a safeguard to make sure certain things happen at certain times. There were planning tools that I developed. There’s like a notebook, it’s a training manual that the Meeting Services Manager now uses to teach people how to…all the steps you need to do and it’s divided up by size of meeting and complexity of meeting, all the different checklists. We even developed forms on how to help the program manager work with us and how we could work with them. Some of the systems we came up with on how to mesh those things together so that we’re working together on it. Another thing that I guess was one of the biggest projects I ever did that saved us the most time and I think saved the Academy a lot of money, is developing a standardized contract for hotels. It was sort of like a Chinese menu of clauses. I spent many, many days at my home because I couldn’t do it here, I couldn’t focus on that kind of stuff, but over a period of months, in my basement at home at my little computer I did that. And I did it by reading a lot of books, I read a lot of contracts, I had a lot of examples. I literally had three eight-foot tables spread out in my basement with all this stuff and developed what I think…and they’re still using it with a few tweaks. Of course I met with Todd Dicus at the time and showed him things and had to have his sign-off from the legal side. I’m not an attorney but I knew the types of things that we needed to protect ourselves from or we needed to cover or we need to make sure this happens or that happens. I wanted to be sure I was saying it right and Todd helped me a lot with that. I think that’s probably the one thing that I did that probably had the most impact on the Academy. I’m spending time, if we did 60 meetings a year, I could end up with 60 different contracts from hotels. Then you spend all your time fighting with them trying to make theirs work. I finally just said, I can’t do this anymore. \n\nSo from what you developed, instead of you having to work with what they give you, you turned around completely and you gave them that and that’s where you started from.\n\nYes. And it’s a rare, rare occasion when we would accept a hotel’s contract and not use our own. About the only time we would do that would be under threat of somebody saying, we have to use that hotel no matter what because if the hotel won’t accept our contract, we said we don’t want to go there. Some small independent places get a little skitzy, they’re not knowledgeable to know that it’s okay. \n\nIs there anything we haven’t covered? Any last thoughts? Anything you want to share?\n\nI can’t think of anything specific. Forty years is a long time although it seems to have gone by in a flash. It’s hard to believe all that time has gone by, just unbelievable. But I feel very fortunate to have found this place when I did, I sort of stumbled in here and I was given opportunities that a young Mississippi girl never expected or didn’t even know about. All the travel and the nice people, such nice people and the staff here. We’ve had a few looneys every once in awhile, I guess every place does and there have been periods of time when it was difficult because of this little thing or that little thing, but you get that anywhere. But for a long, long time it felt more like kind of a family. We kind of marched to a little bit different drummer around here than say, a for-profit corporation. Most of us traveled so much and were with one another so much that we had a bond that was different than if you just go process claim forms at an insurance company somewhere every day and go home. We had a different kind of bond, most of us. We were smaller then, the staff. Now we have 400 people and you don’t even know the names of some of them. The Assembly back then was a really unifying theme, I think. Those of us that worked on Assembly, which was really about half the staff, had a pretty strong bond. We spent a lot of time together. We worked very, very hard and we played hard. We looked out for one another. We had to. There wasn’t another layer to go to, there was no backup, you just took care of your buddy. I think we lost some of that but I guess that’s the nature of getting bigger and more bureaucratic. A lot of bureaucracy now and everything’s so much more formalized. In a lot of ways I’m glad I’m out of some of that. I’m glad I’m retired now. It was getting to be a real chore to keep up with what’s the latest management book that’s come out that we’re all going to have to tap dance to. It makes you weary after awhile. Why do we keep trying to fix things that I don’t think are broken? But younger people coming in, they think all this is new so it’s the first time they’ve gone through some of this stuff so they just jump in it and take off again. The old-timers, we have to go through this again? Maybe that’s’ why people retire and young people come in, the world keeps turning. I don’t know. I guess it keeps people busy, keeps people occupied, gives them jobs. Sometimes I feel like a lot of us go around chasing our tail, things that don’t matter. That’s my philosophy lately since I’ve retired. I look back and I think, what was that all about? That whole thing. Why did I think that my life was so centered on that place? That’s been a revelation to me. I don’t think anybody here’s given me ten minutes thought since I left this place. Why did I spend my whole life devoted to it? \n\nThat’s perspective I guess.  \n\nYeah, you go, whoa! I should have taken a step back a long time ago. But there is life out there after being here. In the four months I’ve been retired, that’s been my revelation. Spent too much time there, too much effort, too much of my heart, too much of myself is here.   \n\nMaybe you didn’t have to worry about things that formerly you worried a lot about or that kind of thing?\n\nYou mean work-related?\n\nYes, is that part of your revelation you’ve had in the four months?  \n\nWell, I don’t know. It’s kind of weird, emotional, I guess. It’s like you come to work every day and you have this stack of papers and you’ve got all these meetings and all these people running around, got to do this, got to do that, this deadline, that deadline and then when the day is over you go, now what was that all about? Who died? Who’s going to die if we don’t get this done? I don’t know. Sometimes I think some of the processes ---- people come up with, I don’t know, trying to fix things that aren’t broken sometimes. I don’t know, I’m rambling. That’s been my revelation since I left here. I always thought of it as when you take your hand out of the bucket of water. (inaudible) Right now I’m feeling kind of down about my work here. \n\nWhy do you feel that way?\n\nI don’t know, because I know changes are being made in things that I did and set up. I worry about the outcome of all that. I shouldn’t, I should just turn that loose. I worry about losing status in the industry, the meetings and conventions industry, the Academy, not me, losing status. \n\nWhat do you think the Academy should do to keep its status?  \n\nI don’t know. They’re losing good people. Just the way they work with hotels, I don’t know what to tell them. I don’t know how to go there, I don’t know what to do. \n\nI want to thank you for coming in and we really appreciate your time.\n\n(Recording ends.)","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284074#t=0.0,1783.50852"}]}]},{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284075","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 3 - Hoel_Annette_Pt_2_05.wav"]},"duration":2931.73755,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284075/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284075/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/284/075/original/Hoel_Annette_Pt_2_05.wav?1754513147","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":2931.73755,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284075","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[]},{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284076","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 3 of 3 - Hoel_Annette_Pt_3_05.wav"]},"duration":3482.53018,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/public/images/audio-default.png","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284076/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284076/content/3/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/284/076/original/Hoel_Annette_Pt_3_05.wav?1754513161","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":3482.53018,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2195/collection_resources/154895/file/284076","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[]}]}