The Immediate Past President

Growing in Unification

Gene B. Welling, DDS

Copyright 2000 Journal of the California Dental Association

This past year I have been on so many delayed flights that all my Executive Committee friends refuse to travel with me. Even my old dog, Fang, refuses to go on the merry-go-round if I'm present. He insists that when I'm not present, at least the carousel makes its rounds regularly.

I will confine my comments to a few personal impressions regarding our great association.

Our executive director has been viewed with the scrutiny of a flock of eagles. Some are looking for faults, and I believe a few have been uncovered. Nevertheless, he has done an absolutely marvelous job in putting our association in order. Those he has hired have been extremely competent, and our association is again a thriving institution. Knowing all that I know now about Mr. Comstock, were one to ask me today if he was our best choice, I would without question say, "Tim is our man!" In a recent Committee to Review the Executive Director report, his favorable ratings increased with the amount of time that a person worked personally with him. Please give him your support. If you have problems with him or CDA, go to him and express your concerns. He will carefully listen to you and share his views with you, and you will both benefit from the encounter. Be cautious with rumors. Ask first and ask at the source. Share your concerns with your CDA leadership, but never be guilty of fueling the rumor fires with hearsay, innuendo, and half-truths.

The staff of our association (including the subsidiaries) must be acknowledged as the best. They are talented and hard-working. We are proud of them and grateful for their service. We have also traveled some extremely difficult roads with our subsidiary companies this past year. We have found that misunderstanding still occasionally feeds the rumor mills, yet those with the power to lead have been responsible for developing improved and open working relationships. The boards of the subsidiaries understand that they have the responsibility of finding successful ways to help their companies achieve certain goals. In so doing, they must maintain an ever-present concern for the shareholder, represented through the holding company. It was the shareholder who put them into their significant board positions of trust; and we, the owner, expect that our positions will be among their chief concerns as they perform their fiduciary duties on their boards. The subsidiary boards are managing this balancing requirement well.

There was an element of distress this year, identified with the acronym of this quartet, "Troublesome, Aggravating, Misunderstood, and, yet, Salvageable." You figure that one out for yourself. Regarding that issue, I would like to comment on two basic fundamentals for all success. Both seem basic to the freedoms and the development of mankind. They are "unity" and "choice." They can work for, or against, one another. Without doubt, choice should come first and be kept on hand for all future actions. Choices must be tied to accountability. We must understand what the results of our choices can be. Choice is capable of building or destroying unity. The reasonable person understands that unfocused choices or choices without boundaries lead to anarchy. Anarchy is unproductive and self-indulgent and incapable of progress. Unity, the antithesis of anarchy, is usually identified as strength. Choice should set our direction, and unity will take us there. There can be no doubt that when we all seek the same goal, remarkable progress can be made. We have seen the power of choice driven with unity in victory on the battlefield, and in putting a man on the moon. Let us come together to make the best choices possible, and then let us unite to achieve together what we cannot possibly achieve alone. If our choices are not wise, even in unity, our victories will be hollow.

Thank you for the privilege of allowing me to serve you as your president this past year. As this century retreats into the past, let us gather together and carefully select our best choices. Then, let us grow in unification to present the strength of dentistry to the new millennium.