Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/1026878
W EEKLY EDITION SEPTEMBER 12, 2018 P AGE 7 'You Empower Yourself by Empowering Others' Past Board nominees talk about their experiences – Part I By GR Anderson Jr., P SAI Communications Director This is the first part of two where we talk to past nominees for the Portable Sanitatio n Alliance International's Board. This week we talk to operators. When Wendy Cross was nominated by Tammy Thompson - Oreskovic, her boss and owner of Arnold's Environmental, to be on the PSAI Board, Cross had just been in the portable sanitation industry for about a year. "I was excited to get involved, but I thought I was a long shot," Cross says. "And I didn't make it onto the Board." But sh e managed to get on some PSAI committees and gave it a shot again the next year – and won. Now, she says, it has enhanced her understanding of the industry, and also of the PSAI and what it can do for Members. She also meets more Members and believes her e xperience has served as a catalyst for camaraderie, even among nominal competitors. "It's a great way to be connected in the industry," Cross notes. "But some people don't know who the Board Members are. I didn't. There is a sense of looking at things thr ough the lens that other people are looking through." Members sometimes don't know who nominates them, and can even nominate themselves. And after nomination, there is no active campaigning, just a bio and a picture for Members to get to know you. "It's good that the PSAI does it that way, so there's no active campaign - election cycle to go through," says Joe Payne of Terry's Pumpin and Potties, who was nominated by his boss and mother - in - law for the 2017 - 2018 Board. "It wasn't crushing that I didn't make it." Payne says he went for it because he believed that his career as a fire services administrator and then an administrator for a juvenile corrections facility for the state of Nevada would make a nice fit. "I'm kind of a back of the room guy, so being nominated got me to go to the Nuts and Bolts Conference for the first time and I ended up meeting people I wouldn't have and talked to people. The Board is selected people from all over the place." Jason P erry of Northwest Cascade - Honey B ucket was nomina ted by his boss and past PSAI President Ron Inman, and he won. "To be nominated to the Board is extremely exciting," he writes in an email. "It is somewhat nerve - wracking as you learn what all the process entails but it is definitely an experience worth tr ying out." Perry cited the process as "well - managed" and felt the competition. "When Association Insight came out with the nominees the first thing I did was read the other nominees' statements and think, Wow, these are some solid candidates." "Running for the Board is about being more involved and then learning more," says Wendy Cross. "In the end, I guess, you empower yourself by empowering others." -- gr