IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2014 - 20

How has IIDA
changed since you
were president?

RICHARD POLLACK: Today, seeing the energy at the annual meeting, the new faces,
the younger people, the growth of the organization internationally-it's just
fantastic, seeing how the entity continues to grow. It's really representing designers,
working with government organizations, dealing with licensure and certification-
the stuff that we couldn't do at the very beginning. Having the Resources program
to provide younger and even experienced designers with resources-it's been
marvelous to see IIDA grow and doing all these great things.
CARY JOHNSON: Ten years ago, we were doing the design as a profession in most cases.
All aspects of design, whether it was the business side, the strategy, the
programming, the execution or the management. Today, there are a whole bunch
of other design-related or industry related professionals that we're competing with:
the real estate community, the project management community, the strategy
groups and the manufacturers. The field of design is a lot larger and a lot broader.
JIM WILLIAMSON: I worked at a 10 person firm for many years-now I'm at a large firm-

but I think Felice Silverman (IIDA President 2013-2014), coming from a small firm,
(though actually 10 people is not that small), brings a different perspective to the
leadership. It helps invigorate a different set of members.

CAROL JONES: When I came on to the IIDA board in 1994 it was a pretty unwieldy
organization. There were 24 people on the board-certainly it's become much leaner.
The year I was President, 1999-2000, we had a bit of a financial blip and what came
out of that was a refocusing of our core business. You know-thinking about: What's
the root of IIDA? What stuff were we doing just because we'd always done it, and
for no other good reason? That refocusing created a new stability-and now we're
in wonderful shape.
CHERYL DURST: Those were great lessons learned for the growth of the Association.
So something that was truly terrible for us to go through ended up building a firm
foundation for our current success.
CAROL JONES: Exactly.

When you look back
at your presidency, what
are you most proud of?

LEWIS GOETZ: A lot of things. One of them was that my presidency started looking
toward the future. We had gone through some difficult times financially and
in other ways. We had gotten through those, we were building a steady base and a
strong foundation, and then by the time I was President-I was the tenth President-
we were able to start looking forward. Knowledge Center was one of the things we
approved and that's still going on. We had just completed our strategic plan the year
before and we were focused on moving that forward. So it was a very exciting time
for me, and sort of set the stage for Presidents to come.
CARY JOHNSON: I came to the presidency through the route of advocacy for Interior
Design legislation. So I had had four to five years of close activity with the Association, the leaders of the Association, and going around the country and advocating
for Interior Design legislation, whether it be a title act or a practice act. I really had
that down solid and felt very good about that. And then coming up to the actual
presidency, I had to broaden my perspective, but I think during that presidency
people looked at me and the Association as leading the way on legislative activities.
RICHARD POLLACK: I came in with all these great ideas about what I was going to try to
do going forward. Moving the profession forward, dealing with legislative affairs-
and then I realized that the only thing we had to do was figure out how to stop the
money hemorrhaging and get a little bit more in. We were able to reach out to the
chapters and get incredible engagement from the contractors, the leadership, the
CLC, and have all these people not only come to the table with "We want to make this
better," but "We'll give you money." "We'll do what we need to do to make sure IIDA
survives." And oh, how it's survived! It's triumphed, so that's been marvelous.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2014