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AANSA NSWERS
T HOMAS A. MARSHALL
AANS LEADERSHIP 2005–2006
OFFICERS
Fremont P. Wirth, MD, president
Donald O. Quest, MD, president-elect
Robert L. Grubb Jr., MD, vice-president
Jon H. Robertson, MD, secretary
James R. Bean, MD, treasurer
Robert A. Ratcheson, MD, past president
DIRECTORS AT LARGE
Robert E. Harbaugh, MD
Christopher M. Loftus, MD
James T. Rutka, MD
Warren R. Selman, MD
Troy M. Tippett, MD
REGIONAL DIRECTORS
Jeffrey W. Cozzens, MD
Paul E. Spurgas, MD
Clarence B. Watridge, MD
Edie E. Zusman, MD
HISTORIAN
Eugene S. Flamm, MD
EX-OFFICIO
Rick Abbott, MD
Lawrence S. Chin, MD
Fernando G. Diaz, MD
Robert F. Heary, MD
Andres M. Lozano, MD
Dennis E. McDonnell, MD
Richard K. Osenbach, MD
Robert H. Rosenwasser, MD
Alex B. Valadka, MD
Ronald E. Warnick, MD
LIAISONS
Isabelle M. Germano, MD
Mark G. Hamilton, MD
Nelson M. Oyesiku, MD
AANS EXECUTIVE OFFICE
5550 Meadowbrook Drive
Rolling Meadows, IL 60008
Phone: (847) 378-0500
(888) 566-AANS
Fax: (847) 378-0600
E-mail: info@AANS.org
Web site: www.AANS.org
Thomas A. Marshall, executive director
Ronald W. Engelbreit, CPA,
deputy executive director
Susan M. Eget, associate executive
director-governance
Joni L. Shulman, associate executive
director-education & meetings
DEPARTMENTS
Communications, Betsy van Die
Development, Michele S. Gregory
Information Services, Anthony P. Macalindong
Marketing, Kathleen T. Craig
Meeting Services, Patty L. Anderson
Member Services, Chris A. Philips
AANS/CNS WASHINGTON OFFICE
725 15th Street, NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 628-2072
Fax: (202) 628-5264
Web site: www.aans.org/legislative/
aans/washington_c.asp
AANS Serves Up Success
Table’s Already Set for Increased Innovation
The fiscal 2004–2005 year-end report was
presented to the AANS Board of Directors
at its November 2005 meeting. The
report affirmed that for the fourth consecutive
year, the AANS enjoyed an extremely
favorable cycle of financial stability and growth of
services to its members. In fact, this marks the
first time in the organization’s records that the
AANS has enjoyed four consecutive years “in the
black” since its founding 75 years ago.
What is evident is that the AANS successfully
weathered a series of internal and external
upheavals that most organizations rarely must
confront separately, let alone simultaneously, in
the final years of the 1990s and the initial years of
this decade.
In the late 1990s, the budget was losing
between $3 million and $5 million annually, there
was a management revolving door of three AANS
executive directors hired successively in 1998,
1999 and 2000, and the Executive Office staff,
while somewhat inflated in number, was turning
over at a rate of 117 percent in 2000 and 2001.
Though daunting, these management challenges
were not the real cause for concern. Far
more ominous clouds threatened, not on the horizon,
but directly overhead.
The AANS had become dangerously reliant on
only two very undependable sources of income for
its operations: the annual meeting and membership
dues. Not only could earthquake, terrorist
attack, or, as we just saw in New Orleans, devastating
flood wipe out the former, the AANS was not
even systematically and consistently collecting the
latter. The only thing that was consistent about the
dues was that they were raised every year as a budgetary
matter of course to reflect a cost-of-living
increase. (Dues have not been raised in the last four
consecutive successful fiscal years).
Given what the organization faced at the time,
how the AANS has reached the levels of stability
and service that you enjoy today as a member is
worth truly understanding.
While it is true that dramatic restructuring,
downsizing and spending cuts at the front end
Thomas A. Marshall
is AANS
executive director.
paved the road to recovery, those key decisions are
already enjoying too much of the focus and credit.
Critical as those strategies were, they were only
the “table setting” for the success that followed.
The reasons behind today’s success can be
attributed to far more than the belt-tightening
tactics of five years ago. Crucial to this success is
that simultaneously the AANS augmented a
thoughtfully chosen menu of new, and at least for
the AANS, unproven revenue streams: the expansion
of educational programming; the development
of products and services based upon
accurate assessment of what you, the member,
told us you wanted; the revision of organizational
policies covering dues, investment revenue, and a
cash reserve; and the measured outreach to a variety
of allied publics who had an interest in the
health of neurosurgery and its most diversified
membership association.
Five years’ worth of AANS leadership and staff
can take pride in the success of those basic strategies.
But it was always the AANS members who
were the intended ultimate beneficiaries of those
early decisions.
At a time when most organizations would seek
shelter to ride out the fiscal, structural and philosophical
storm, the decisions to propel the AANS
into a proactive production mode were critical to
providing better and expanded services to AANS
members. This proactive mode is the core of
AANS’ strategic planning for the latter half of this
decade and well beyond. The new and improved
AANS is an organization ready to move forward
in the 21st century with innovative programming
for its members, and positioned to launch the specialty
to new heights. 3
52 AANS Bulletin • www.AANS.org