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I established an organization called the business and environmental resource center - established and grew the budget,
    built the organization from scratch, it was important that everyone is supportive of each other.


    6. Please describe your experience in coordinating, tracking and reporting out on the implementation of organization-
    al goals, objectives, policies and procedures.



    There are a couple of things that I use - there are obviously - there are key activities that my staff and my organization
    are tracking. We have a master tracking system or spreadsheet where we have different regulatory and legislative issues.
    We track those by priority - who is the lead person on that issue and then kind of what the status is. We have an ability
    to develop expertise on a given issue. They are going to be the lead and have that responsibility. It gives us the ability to
    prioritize. In our world, sometimes issues will go on for years but we want to maintain those lists to understand where
    things are at. For other efforts, we also do business planning within our District. Through that business planning effort
    we are looking at business initiatives. Other larger goal oriented activities are going to help us achieve our strategic
    plan. Now we are taking the strategic plan and developing the objectives and the tasks to get there. We have a database
    system where we have key activities and they are identified with the lead person and support staff and a short descrip-
    tion of the activity. That has to be updated on a quarterly basis. What are the milestones and key steps - what did you
    conduct that quarter, what did you achieve. That organizationally - we track the goals and objectives and they track back
    to the strategic plan. One thing my group does is handle policies and procedures for the District. We developed various
    documents that can be delegated to our engineers so they know what they have to do.


    7. The Executive Director will work closely with other state and regional organizations, with the legislature and reg-
    ulatory agencies.  Please describe a time that you have been instrumental to change and had to work with external
    stakeholders in accomplishing this change.



    One issue that may show how bringing a broad spectrum of entities involved - I worked on a regulatory requirement
    where they were developing a mercury TMDL - working with the Regional Water Board - they were going to focus on
    reducing mercury contaminants getting into the waterway. Most of it comes from hydraulic mining that was done in the
    1800s and gets washed down. When the regulatory agencies started their regulation they wanted to focus on treatment
    plants, but in the end of the day treatment plants were a minor cause of mercury contamination. When we went through
    that process they felt that wastewater plants could deal with it. We felt this was not cost effective and would not have a
    meaningful result on the environment. We brought in the environmental groups to say we have this overall problem. As a
    result of building a coalition of different interests we were able to work with that regional water board, we were able to
    figure out what can be done realistically to control the mercury sources. That took about 5 or 6 years to get through the
    regulatory process. We had key principals. Ultimately we had a regulation that was imposed by the regulatory bodies -
    we decided we had to do a study first and then figure out our process.


    8.  Describe your experience with membership-based organizations and your approach to working with them. How do
    you evaluate whether an association is providing a good level of customer service to its members? What do you feel
    are some of the challenges to achieving a high level of customer service?



    I do have experience working with membership organizations and associations, from a couple of different perspectives.
    The bulk of my experience has been a member-participant - trying to work with different committees. I've been involved
    in a variety of organizations from that perspective. I am currently a chair for the clean water organization in the Central
    Valley. From a board level taking a different approach of looking at the budget - making sure we are using our member
    dues accordingly. As chair of the board it has brought me the ability to look at the customer service activities, are we
    addressing what our members need - are there things we need to be doing effectively. Are we increasing membership or
    are we losing. Think about how we can make the organization more efficient - maintain lists, do contracts, make sure bills
    are paid. It's been a learning experience and there is a lot of detail. Some of the challenges around improving customer
    service - is doing within the cost constraints of the organization. When you mention - how do you evaluate that custom-
    er service and what are some of those challenges. Sometimes your response rates are lower. Call members themselves
    or have somebody do it anonymously. Some of the challenges to achieving a high-level of customer service. Usually the
    memberships are based on the dues that are paid. I think one of the challenges that they face as an association - is how
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