by Jim Karshner
November 16, 2007
Demographers are predicting a tsunami of retirements in the U.S. labor force when 43 percent of workers become eligible to retire during the next five years. The “gray drain” is already being felt at four Lansing-based trade and professional associations with the retirements or planned exits of four leaders with combined institutional memory of more than 150 years.
William Dansby
William Dansby retired July 31 after 40 years as executive vice president of the Michigan Optometric Association. James Barrett is leaving the Michigan Chamber of Commerce next July after nearly 37 years with the organization, 32 of them as president and CEO. Likewise, Larry Meyer retires from the Michigan Retailers Association on December 31 after 34 years at the helm. And Gerri Cherney retired from the Michigan Dental Association last December 31 after 16 years as executive director and 45 years with the group.
Collectively, these four have built a legacy of legislative clout, financial rescue, tax limitation, public service, strong organizational growth and establishment of a new college — to touch on a few highlights.A young Bill Dansby came to Lansing in 1963 from Jacksonville, Florida, to anchor the news at Channel 6. An equally young Michigan Optometric Association was looking for its second executive director and Dansby agreed to leave journalism to run the small trade group on a trial basis in 1967. He ended up staying 40 years.
“We started out in a 350-square-foot office on the 4th floor of the Stoddard Building, the site of the current Farnum Senate Office Building,” recalls Dansby. “We had 450 members and assets totaling $25,000.”
One of Dansby’s first tasks was to get a college of optometry established in Michigan. Students seeking a four-year degree had to leave the state for programs in Ohio, Indiana or Illinois. “We found ourselves in a turf war with ophthalmologists who viewed us as a threat. Even Gov. Milliken vetoed money for a feasibility study…we later got it inserted into boilerplate of an appropriations bill.”
The Michigan College of Optometry at Ferris State University was established in 1975 and its first class of 21 optometrists graduated in 1979. Dansby also spearheaded efforts to get lawmakers to approve legislation allowing certified optometrists to use diagnostic and therapeutic drugs in their practices, resulting in better care for their patients. Not surprisingly, Ferris honored him this year by granting an honorary degree.
When Dansby retired earlier this year, the Michigan Optometric Association’s membership had more than doubled, with assets north of $2 million and its own building at Pine and Ionia.
Dansby’s successor is Cindy Schnetzler. She had been director of GCSI Association Services, a subsidiary of Lansing lobbying firm Governmental Consultant Services Incorporated, since 1994.
Jim Barrett
Like Dansby, Jim Barrett joined a young organization in 1971 and was named its second president in 1976. His predecessor, Harry Hall, started the Michigan Chamber of Commerce in 1959. Prior to joining the chamber, Barrett was an audit and budget analyst in the Michigan Department of Education.
When Barrett took over for Hall, the chamber had 1,600 members and a staff of 16. The chamber, along with a handful of other Lansing-based pro-business groups, played second fiddle to the labor unions that were well-organized politically.
Today, the chamber has 7,100 members and 43 staff. But numbers don’t adequately tell the story. The chamber has voice and clout that not only put business on the same stage with labor, but in many cases overshadows the unions that have been steadily declining in numbers.
Barrett and the chamber were active in the tax limitation movement (Headlee Amendment) in the ’70s; workers’ comp reform and supporting pro-business legislators in the ’80s; legal reforms and successfully supporting campaigns for the state Supreme Court in the ’90s. It remains front and center on issue advocacy in the ’00s and vows to be active on radio and TV relating to the 2008 Michigan Supreme Court and state House of Representatives races.
And while Barrett prefers to credit the involvement of his membership and staff, he is nonetheless the architect behind many major issues during the past 36 years. In 2003 the Michigan Political History Society named him the most effective association leader in state politics during the last 50 years.
Rich Studley, an aggressive business advocate who has been with the chamber since 1981 and currently serves as executive vice president, will succeed his boss in July 2008. Barrett, meanwhile, plans to stay active with various board activities, travel, golf and spending time with his family (he became a grandfather earlier this year).
Larry Meyer
Larry Meyer was sent to Lansing by the Washington, D.C.-based American Retail Federation in 1972 with one mission: save the Michigan Retailers Association from bankruptcy. Meyer’s predecessor had been using insurance funds to cover administrative expenses and left the organization with a six-figure deficit. Meyer accepted the job of CEO, quickly met with MRA’s 15 creditors and renegotiated terms with all but one. They were all paid off in one year.
Since then — to paraphrase Meyer — the arrow has been heading in the right direction. During his 34-year tenure (a lifelong Republican, he took a 16-month leave in the late 1980s to direct the Michigan Department of Commerce under Democrat James Blanchard), membership grew from 740 to 5,500, making MRA the largest state retailers organization in the nation. That growth was fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit that broke the association mold by offering members valuable business services in addition to legislative representation. Chief among these were credit card processing (MRA now processes some $600 million in members’ transactions every year) and low-cost insurance (MRA recently converted its self-insured work comp fund to a full-service mutual insurance company).
Meyer has seen a number of trends: the advent of big-box retailers (Wal-Mart, Meijer, Home Depot), the deterioration of downtowns and their rebirth) and the decline of Detroit’s Big Three automakers. “When I came to Michigan, the Big Three’s market share was 94 percent, with the other 6 percent belonging to Volkswagen. Today, it’s around 50 percent…and causing turmoil throughout Michigan’s economy.”
Meyer officially retires December 31, with James P. Hallan waiting in the wings. Hallan has been president of the organization since 1989, four years after joining as general counsel. Meyer says his retirement plans are a “blank piece of paper,” but given his community involvement (including two terms on the Lansing City Council), he won’t spend much time in his rocking chair.
Gerri Cherney
When Gerri Cherney retired from the Michigan Dental Association last year, she left a legacy not likely to be repeated. Fresh out of high school in 1958, Cherney literally started out in the mailroom and worked her way to the boardroom over a career that spanned almost a half century.
In the early ’60s she quit for four years to stay home with her two children, but the association was able to lure her back part-time with a flexible work schedule. She also managed to earn an undergraduate degree from Spring Arbor.
When her daughter entered the first grade, Cherney returned full-time to a succession of secretarial jobs. After that she became the association’s health education director, conference and meeting planner and editor of MDA’s Journal. In 1990 she was named executive director and steered the organization through a period of growth. One of only three employees when she started, Cherney led a staff of 50 when she retired.
Much like retailers, dentists’ fortunes are closely tied to Michigan’s economy. “When Chrysler lays off 12,000 employees, that’s going to impact our members in Southeast Michigan,” she says.
Cherney hopes to share her expertise with others in association management while spending time at a family condo in Palm Springs, California. She was succeeded by Drew Eason, who previously served as the association’s assistant executive director for membership services.
Jim Karshner is founder and president of Above the Fold, a Lansing-area public relations company. He handled media relations for the Michigan Department of Commerce during (as well as before and after) Larry Meyer’s time as director.
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