August 2003 Actuarial Review - From the President

From the President
Our Volunteer Spirit
by Gail M. Ross
In recent years, during the business session of our Spring and Annual Meetings, we've started a tradition in which the president asks everyone who has volunteered for the CAS in the past year to rise and be recognized. As a meeting attendee, I was always amazed and impressed when I would look around and see how many of my peers had also volunteered their time by serving on committees, writing papers, or speaking at seminars. This past May, I had the chance to repeat this tradition during my first meeting as president of the CAS. As I stood at the podium in Marco Island, I remember feeling great pride as I looked out at nearly a third of the audience standing to be recognized as volunteers.
When I took over the presidency of the CAS, knowing I'd have the opportunity to offer my thoughts quarterly via this column, I looked through the archives of The Actuarial Review to get a sense for the topics written about by my predecessors. Interestingly enough, I noticed that every president back to Bob Anker (1996) wrote something about CAS volunteerism in at least one column. (I'd guess, with a high degree of certainty, that those who preceded Bob also touted our volunteer spirit, but seven years of history told enough of a story for me!) Now that I have the honor of being president of this Society, like my predecessors, I have full appreciation for how important volunteerism has been and will continue to be for the CAS.
The CAS will be celebrating its centennial anniversary in 2014. For the past year and a half our Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC), working with input from our committee chairs, has articulated the Core Values of the CAS and developed a vision for the CAS as we turn 100.
Core Values are the essential and enduring principles that guide an organization, and ours include many dimensions:
Learning. The belief that the continuing effectiveness of a casualty actuary is built upon dedication to the idea of life-long learning.
Innovation. The belief that the continuing vitality of the CAS is best served when creative thinking and research are fostered, open discussion is encouraged, new ideas are openly entertained, and the diversity of opinion of its members is respected.
Community. The belief that members of the CAS are best served when the activities of the CAS are characterized by the open sharing and exchange of ideas and research.
Volunteerism. The belief that the Core Purpose of the CAS is best served when every member is directly involved in the affairs of the CAS and volunteers to serve other members and the industries where we work.
Professionalism. The belief that the professionalism of casualty actuaries is best realized when the CAS as an organization as well as its members individually are committed to the idea of adhering to the highest professional and ethical standards of education, qualification, and practice.
Notice that volunteerism is recognized as one of the essential principles that guide the CAS.
The LRPC then articulated our vision—our Big Audacious Goal, or "BAG"—as follows:
"The CAS will be globally recognized as the preeminent resource in educating casualty actuaries and conducting research in casualty actuarial science. CAS members will be recognized as the leading experts in the evaluation of hazard risk and the integration of hazard risk with strategic, financial, and operational risk."
You'll notice that there are actually two major goals embedded in our BAG: The goal for global recognition as the leader in the casualty actuarial arena and the goal to use our quantitative training to broaden our scope of practice. In and of itself, each of these goals would be a challenge, but to keep our organization and our profession vibrant and growing, we've elected to be really big and audacious by combining them into one vision for our future.
In order for this vision of the CAS in 2014 to be successful, it will be necessary to embed this BAG throughout the activities of all of our volunteer committees, Regional Affiliates, and Special Interest Sections. In the shorter horizon, we will be setting interim goals, objectives, and strategies for our committees. These interim goals will need to be significant, attainable, and measurable—we refer to these as "SAM" goals.
To assure that we stay focused and on track, our board appointed a small task force made up of Cynthia Ziegler, the CAS executive director, and six members from the LRPC. Each was assigned to work closely with our six vice presidents and to oversee the implementation of the long-range plan in the coming years.
However, we realize that as volunteers we are all facing the ever-increasing challenge of limited time and budgets. This task force, along with our executive council and board, will thus analyze our current committee structures and, wherever possible, replace large committees with smaller task forces. The new task forces will have smaller, predefined goals that can be completed in shorter time frames. We will rely more heavily on e-mail, teleconference, and, potentially, Webcast meetings rather than face-to-face gatherings.
This will certainly be a challenge to achieve and many organizations would not consider taking on such a daunting task. Because of the dedication of our volunteers, though, I am confident we'll get there. Our BAG reaffirms the Core Values that our Society has had for nearly 100 years and calls upon us to share these values. If you haven't done so already, I'd encourage you to get the "volunteer spirit"—there is much to be done and only 11 years to achieve these goals!