Two associations hired veterans this week to help grow membership and refresh programs.
Former NAMB, The Association of Mortgage Professionals president Don Frommeyer just moved into the CEO slot, a new position for the 41-year-old organization. He will continue several of the same functions but now will get a small stipend and work with a new president. One goal is to bring younger people into the profession. To be qualified to originate a loan, a person has to go through 20 hours of education, background checks, fingerprinting, credit checks, and pass state and national tests. He says it scares away recent college grads, so he wants to work on programs to show the career potential.
Don, who’s been a loan originator since ’77, has been president of the Plano, Texas-based association since 2011. Since then, membership doubled to 5,300 through better marketing and making prospective members aware of the association's benefits. Some of them include help with a member’s website to payroll services. Don says there’s a ways to go considering the US has 113,000 originators. The organization also does some public policy work like regulations on the fee caps that lenders can charge.
The International Association for Human Resource Information Management is also sporting a new executive director. Todd Mann (here with his wife in the fjords of Norway this summer) was hired to push the “refresh” button on the 34-year-old DC-based organization. Todd is an association consultant who serves as executive director for other small associations and previously held leadership positions for the National Restaurant Association and Associated Builders and Contractors. He’ll do more marketing of IHRIM's work to prospective members and strengthen its education and certification programs.
Todd, who also had a 15-year tech career, says the biggest challenge small associations face is being relevant to members. Gone are the days when workers and organizations joined associations because that’s just what you did. Now competition is more intense and dollars are more scarce, so members want the best bang for the buck. An interesting note about Todd’s experience: He’s known for pioneering the presence of banks within supermarkets. He was with the Food Marketing Institute and worked with Kroger, which started with a consumer banking branch in an Atlanta store. (He should team with Don Frommeyer, in case people need a loan to afford organic kumquats.)
