From the President

Who Runs the CAS?

by Alice H. Gannon

Steve Lehmann handed me the gavel at the conclusion of the CAS's annual meeting in San Francisco in November and I became the president of the CAS. Any way I look at it, serving as the president of the Casualty Actuarial Society is a major event in my life. It is a great honor. It is a major commitment of my time and energy. It is a significant responsibility and a great opportunity to learn and experience many new things. Yes, serving as the president of the CAS is definitely a major event for me personally and I am both grateful for the opportunity and a little anxious about doing a good job.

It is not, however, a major event for the CAS.

The president of the CAS does have an important role in CAS activities. The president oversees the development and achievement of a long list of operational goals for the CAS that represent the majority of activities that will take place during the year. The president represents the CAS in many different situations and the president's actions help shape how others view the CAS and interact with the organization. The president sometimes must quickly make important decisions about issues when the time frame does not allow for coordinated decision making. Choosing a president is an important decision. And how he or she does the job is important to the success of the CAS.

Nevertheless, the president's efforts, time, and decisions are but a tiny fraction of the total endeavors made by CAS volunteers. Hundreds of members spend tens of thousands of hours each year working to carry out the purposes of the CAS. There is no single responsibility of the president that is any more important than the responsibilities of the dozens of committee chairs, officers, and board members who represent the formal leadership of our organization. Important decision making is spread among those leaders, who sometimes act individually but often in conjunction with other CAS leaders or members. Major policy and strategic decisions are made by the Board of Directors based on input from the members, relevant committees, and the Executive Council. All key operational decisions are made by the Executive Council and those decisions also are based on input from the committees and, when appropriate, broader member input.

In fact, the CAS's governance structure was deliberately and wisely established by prior leaders to assure a broad spread of responsibility and authority. This is a major strength of the CAS. Its success, however, depends heavily on a strong volunteer culture. We are blessed that the CAS has a rich tradition of high involvement by a large percent of its members. While there have been times in the past when we have taken that for granted, we no longer do so. This past year, one of my responsibilities as president-elect was to serve as the chair of a new committee, the Committee on Volunteer Resources. It was a great experience and increased my awareness and appreciation of how important and valuable it will be to focus effort on maintaining our volunteer culture, especially in light of our rapid growth.

To quote the committee's charge, "The Committee on Volunteer Resources is responsible for reviewing volunteer involvement in the CAS and recommending ways to improve volunteer involvement and member satisfaction with CAS methods for utilizing volunteers."

This past year Chris Carlson, Jerry Degerness, Russ Fisher, Roberta Garland, Ed Kuss, Kelly McKeethan, and Roger Schultz did an excellent job of carrying out this charge. They made improvements to the participation survey and to the procedures for following up on the survey results. They sponsored an information booth and concurrent session at the November meeting to promote awareness of the wide variety of volunteer opportunities available (see story). They designed and implemented a "New Volunteer Mentor" program to assist members who want to get involved in CAS activities but aren't sure how to do so. They began developing new ways to recognize and reward the CAS's many volunteers. And of course, in fine actuarial style, they worked with the office staff to begin developing statistics for objectively tracking the level of volunteer involvement.

With support and assistance from many other CAS members, I hope the Committee on Volunteer Resources will help us maintain the strong volunteer culture we have enjoyed throughout the history of the CAS. I believe it is critical to our future to do so.

Who runs the CAS? Hundreds of volunteering CAS members run the CAS. As current CAS president, I am especially glad that that is the case.