We visited the American Physical Therapy Association's new CEO, Michael Bowers, who's been leading the 88,000-member organization all of two weeks. He comes from a 25-year career at the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and has a background in mission-based organizations. He has no plans to make drastic changes to the Alexandria, Va.-based organization, but he knows a few of the challenges associations face are demographics and market penetration. Everyone wants to be more diverse, as well as build new programming and be innovative. Association structures and processes that were designed for baby boomers also need to be updated. (In all office references to Dylan, just cross out Bob and replace with Jakob.)
Michael was born in Alabama but as the son of an Air Force officer, he grew up all over the US and abroad. He spends free time scuba diving and singing and songwriting with his wife. He was in the ministry for eight years and worked in religious organizations and churches. While doing his family therapy graduate training, he came to DC and helped a religious consortium figure out how to serve the growing immigrant population in Arlington, Va., in the '70s and '80s. One of the best lessons he’s learned: If you don’t understand relational and cultural processes in associations, you’re not going to be able to succeed.
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