Thursday
Class Leaders' Breakout Sessions
- On
Thursday, LTC (R) Tom Mulyca ’73 and Nicole Corbin began the Breakout
Sessions by presenting a briefing on the Blackbaud
Net Community and Credit Card Hosting. Essentially, this briefing evolved into a
lengthy discussion of the AOG’s plans to upgrade its communications
capabilities. A key portion of this
briefing was the presentation given by Derek Rector, the representative
from Diamax, the company AOG has hired to revamp
its website. Because of graduates’
heavy reliance on the Internet for all sorts of class-related activities,
Derek’s comments regarding Diamax’s plans for
the AOG website sparked considerable interest. (See slides.) This session also proved to
be another good platform for LTG Stroup’s appeal to become a “donor of
record” because everyone in the audience understood that the kinds of
communications upgrades the AOG’s constituents would like to see will only
occur with increased contributions on their part.
- The
communications capabilities discussion was followed by another very well
received briefing, this one by Greg Louks ’88. Greg’s focus was explaining how and why
the AOG has entered the construction business to the very large extent it
has. Since the bottom-line of
Greg’s comments was that heavy involvement by the AOG in the process of
construction management has saved literally millions of dollars of
graduates’ donations, the class leaders took an avid interest in how these
savings occurred. The best support
for the case made by Greg was the construction of the Hoffman Press Box at
Michie Stadium.
This construction project was the first major one undertaken by the
AOG, and it was completed on time and for more than five million dollars
less than it would have cost under the former way of doing business. By the end of this briefing, everyone in
the audience had a thorough understanding of why the AOG became so
involved in construction of donor projects, how that involvement evolved
over time, and what the results of that involvement have been. (See slides.)
- By this
point in the afternoon, time was running short, but MAJ Dave Lyle ’94 of
OEMA followed the construction briefing with a condensed presentation of
the major retention initiative the Army began last year in an effort to
convince company-grade officers to make a career of the Army. This discussion involved many charts,
figures, and statistics, but MAJ Lyle did such a nice job synthesizing the
information that everyone in the audience was able to follow the rationale
for and implementation of this retention initiative. MAJ Lyle explained that this
initiative—essentially an offer by the Army (to students about to be
commissioned) to sign up for eight years of active duty service in
exchange for their branch or post of choice, or the commitment by the Army
to send them to graduate school—exceeded the Army’s expectations and
should go a long way toward enabling the Army to meet its requirements for
career officers during the years and decades ahead.
- After MAJ
Lyle’s briefing, Joel Jebb ’82, Director of Class Support, had
approximately five minutes to give his update, a briefing originally
planned for thirty minutes. Despite
the time constraint, he was able to introduce himself, give his audience a
brief biographical sketch of himself and his family, and address the most
significant ways in which his directorate has provided support to cadets
and graduates during the past year.
He concluded his briefing by stating his three primary goals for
the upcoming year—establish meaningful relationships with his
constituents; provide responsive, excellent service to his constituency;
and develop a long-term vision for the Class Support Program—and thanking
the members of the audience for their enthusiastic, engaged reaction to
the afternoon’s briefings.