The President

The Pacesetter for the Profession

When Yogi Berra was asked about planning for the future, he said, "If you don’t know where you’re going, you could wind up someplace else." Well, ladies and gentlemen of the House, the California Dental Association does know where it’s going, and I’d like to share that vision with you today.

Little could I have known when I became an officer that CDA would have five executive directors in just four years. It is a tribute to the professionalism of the staff of this organization that the majority of our membership never knew there was any turmoil. The staff is truly the glue that holds CDA together on a daily basis. Please join me in showing them the appreciation they deserve.

Good leadership is like a relay race, you can’t win the race unless each member of the team gives his or her best performance and then passes the baton smoothly. You have been fortunate to have had the right personality in place at the right time during our transition years. Ken Lange kept our ship afloat with his steady hand on the tiller; and Gene Welling, who has never spoken a harsh word to anyone in his life, was truly a healing force when we needed it. I have no misconceptions that any of the goals I’m going to share with you today can be accomplished without the support and hard work of those who will follow. To that end, I have been meeting with Jack Broussard and Steve Chan throughout this year to coordinate our blueprint for a 21st century CDA. This approach will also be followed by Dennis Kalebjian and our newest member of Ex Com, Deb Finney.

For the California Dental Association to continue to be the pacesetter for the profession into the next millennium, we have to be accessible, we have to be accountable, and we have to be adaptable.

Accessibility

A recent Journal of the California Dental Association article pointed out the dramatic demographic changes taking place in California. In 1970, the year I graduated from dental school, Caucasians made up almost 80 percent of the population. They will be a minority before I retire. The state of California is growing at about twice the rate of the other 49 states, with Asian and Hispanic populations growing the fastest. The graduating classes from the California dental schools are the most ethnically diverse in the nation, and nearly 40 percent of our new dentists are women. The needs, views, and goals of these new dentists are not the same as those of more established dentists. As Russ Webb, our original diversity chairman, stated, "As an association and as colleagues, we need to understand these differences and embrace the changes." CDA must accommodate these new grads, for if we don’t, those dentists will join other groups or form their own. We are not doing a good enough job of attracting the new professional, and our market share is shrinking. Couple these demographic changes with the fact that 39 percent of our current members are 55 years old or older, and you begin to see that we must increase accessibility if we are to remain an effective, representative voice for dentistry.

How are we going to address this problem? First, CDA has to raise its visibility among the dental student population. CDA, through our subsidiary TDIC, contributes substantial scholarships to each of the dental schools, but we don’t always get the recognition we deserve. We are discussing resolutions at this House to improve the way those scholarships are awarded, and we’re looking into merging all of our contributions under one committee so we can be more effective. We are going to take over the school visit presentations from ADA so that the students can relate to organized dentistry more on a local basis. We are encouraging each of the components to standardize their membership application processes. This will prevent the misconception that these new dentists are not welcome in some components. We plan to enlarge and improve our Web site so that information about CDA’s programs and benefits are readily accessible on the Internet.

And, finally, my personal goal is to create a low-interest loan program for the new member. A couple of things must happen before it becomes a reality. First, the pending application by 1201 Financial to become a federal credit union needs to be approved by the national agency. Then I hope to beg, cajole, strong-arm, or otherwise convince our members to donate to a loan fund that would form the corpus that the credit union could leverage to make these loans. I see it as a win/win situation for both sides. For the new practitioner, it would provide some breathing room. He or she or would have more career options instead of being forced into a particular mode of practice just to stay above water financially. For CDA, it would serve as a great recruitment and retention tool since the borrower would have to belong to the association to be a member of the credit union. It would also give CDA a higher profile with the new practitioner than our current scholarship program seems to give us.

Accountability

To be effective, CDA must be accountable to its membership. Our staff and volunteer leadership cannot make decisions in a vacuum. To try to get more feedback from membership, we will suggest that our CDA Nights with the components use a town hall forum. In speaking at various components, I have promoted this kind of interchange. The results have been fantastic for me, and I hope that the members feel that they are not being lectured to but, rather, have the ability to give input.

Also with regard to accountability, the 1999 House packet contained the most comprehensive treasurer’s report ever. My congratulations to Steve Chan and our CFO, Rich Krolak. They have tried to present the finances in as clear and complete a fashion as possible. I use this as an example of the open, clear, and timely information that will be the goal for all future reporters from all departments. Mr. Comstock’s Executive Privilege report to the components following the quarterly Board meetings is another example. We are also trying to get as many meeting minutes and reports on our Web page as our resources will allow.

We are restructuring our Board of Trustee meetings for next year to allow more time for issues discussions. We tend to be so busy doing that we fail to spend enough time thinking. One or two of the issues that need ample discussion to develop a position or policy will be on the agenda of each trustee meeting. We will take the time to fully analyze and get feedback on the important issues confronting our profession. Staff will then be better prepared to lobby or defend our position in health care forums at the state and national levels. We will push for a staff person to be our liaison to the regulatory agencies since much of the state control of our practices come from these groups.

We have a volunteer-led Holding Company, which eight years after its creation has become truly functional. It oversees our for-profit subsidiaries. It acts as the buffer between the demands of the not-for-profit CDA and the needs of the for-profits to expand and grow in the marketplace. I see it as the financial cement that holds our family together. The membership has input through this holding company, without micromanaging those entities.

At the recent ADA House of Delegates, it was stated that the future success of that association depends on its ability to generate nondues revenue. I would like to acknowledge the tremendous contribution to our success that Fritz Knauss, Roger Kittredge, and their staffs have made to CDA.

Adaptability

The third A -- adaptability -- reminds me of a sign I once saw when driving through West Virginia. It read, "Choose your rut carefully, you’re going to be in it for the next 50 miles." Well, starting with Tim Comstock’s administration, the phrase, "But we’ve always done it that way," is no longer acceptable.

I think the biggest impact of my term next year will be the creation of the Strategic Planning Committee. A quote by H.G. Wells says it best: "History is nothing more than the race between education and catastrophe." So, unlike the past, when every three years or so the leadership would get together and discuss the future of CDA, the Strategic Planning Committee will be an ongoing, standing committee. It will meet quarterly to develop and modify the long-term goals of the association. It will be made up of seasoned volunteers, up-and-coming young professionals who have never been involved in a statewide office, staff, and nondental businesspeople. Its challenge will be to continuously look three to five years ahead.

Will this prevent us from having to make some short-range, off-the-cuff decisions? Probably not, but if we can limit those, we will be able to focus our efforts on the long-term goals of the association. We hope to have all resolutions, council projects, and staff efforts coordinated and focused on the objectives created after feedback from the membership and this committee.

In his executive director’s report, Tim mentioned the staff organizational audit that was undertaken to make CDA as efficient and responsive to member needs as possible. During this next year, we will look at the volunteer side, to see if we are doing all we can to make participation and leadership open to all who have the talent and desire to serve. Some of the major changes we will be analyzing will be whether to shorten the trustee terms from six years to four and to reduce the number of positions in the officer corps from six to four. By the time most have us have reached this podium, we have spent 12 to 16 years as volunteers. The sheer length of that commitment may be causing us to lose some very talented people.

Finally, we must use all the creative and financial resources available to make our Web page, CDA Online, the 21st century dental gathering place. It must replace the figurative village watering hole as the source for information to and from the membership. It has to be attractive, easy to use, timely, and hyperlinked to a variety of nondental areas of interest. It should become as much a part of our member dentists’ lives as reading the morning newspaper. We were pioneers in this area, but we have fallen way, way behind. I hope that during this year we will make the effort needed to catch up. We have moved the responsibility for Online to our Public Relations Department. We have reviewed proposals that will leapfrog our current Web page from smoke signals and drums to the age of cell phones. We must use our time, talent, and resources to make this leap forward a reality.

In closing, consider the postage stamp. Its usefulness consists of the ability to stick to one thing until it gets delivered. That is my goal for the coming year. Let me go back to the vision I have for CDA as we move into the next millennium -- We will be ACCESSIBLE, we will be ACCOUNTABLE, and we will be ADAPTABLE. We will be these things because we have a legacy, a pride. We are, and will remain, the alpha dog of all of dentistry.