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Our Professional Staff—Celebrating a Century of the AAOMS

2018; Elsevier BV; Volume: 76; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.joms.2018.04.029

1531-5053

James R. Hupp,

Health and Medical Research Impacts

The founding of our professional organization brought together a small group of individuals with a vision to use the power of a society of like-minded people to further their collective goals as they related to the delivery of patient care. Like most groups of this nature, they initially did not have a fulltime staff; rather, they did most of the administrative tasks themselves or used staff from their clinical practices. However, as the young organization grew in the number of members and complexity, non-surgeon administrators were hired to help the society serve its members and support its growing number of activities. Now, in its 100th year, with more than 9,000 members and an ambitious set of goals and objectives, the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) has 55 fulltime individuals who dedicate their time and talents to serving our specialty. I have previously described the critical role played by the staff of an organization of professionals in helping accomplish its missions.1Hupp J.R. The role of staff in successful professional organizations.J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2015; 73: 375Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (2) Google Scholar In that editorial, I gave a few examples of outstanding administrative staff members. In our 100-year celebration, it is apropos to refocus our attention on those non-surgeon individuals who serve the members of the AAOMS, and, through them, improve patient care, educate future health care providers, disseminate information related to oral-maxillofacial surgery (OMS), and advance health care through innovations and discoveries. I have had the good fortune of working with many of the current members of the AAOMS staff, but unfortunately for me, not all of them. I want to help introduce to readers who might not be familiar with them, those AAOMS staff members with whom I have had the pleasure to work, as well as a few who serve us through sister organizations. I begin with the people I currently work with most closely. Those are Jolene Kremer and Sarah Trotto, in their roles as Associate Executive Director (AED) of Publications and Communications and Editorial Manager, respectively. Ms Kremer oversees all our association's external communications, including this Journal, as well as press releases, speeches, newsletters, the website, and production of the AAOMS centennial history book, coming out in 2019. We had our annual Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (JOMS) Editorial Board meeting in April, allowing others on our Board to learn what I already knew; namely, Ms Kremer is an outstanding relatively recent addition to the AAOMS staff. Ms Trotto manages the News section of the Journal. In addition, she is the managing editor of the AAOMS Today publication, serves as copy editor of drafted communications, and authors many press releases. Ms Kremer also has Heidi Bonfield in her unit, whom I do not work with regularly, but who, among her other duties, helps ensure the Journal meets quality standards and works with our publisher with regard to the important job of the placement of Journal and AAOMS Today advertisements, which help offset dues dollars. This week (in April), I again participated in the always interesting AAOMS Day on the Hill. These events have lots of moving parts, but Karin Wittich, the association's AED of Practice Management and Government Affairs, and her crew, manage to ensure every detail is attended to in an expert fashion. This includes preparing members for meetings with their national legislators, arranging special visits for AAOMS leadership, scheduling well-known keynote speakers, and conducting post-event follow-up with legislative staff members. As with other AAOMS units, I do not know all of her staff and their activities, but the ones I have worked with are all excellent, including Jeanne Tuerk, Manager of Government Affairs, and Adam Walaszek and Sandy Guenther, who work on state and national advocacy projects. I can assure you that all AAOMS advocacy efforts are well performed and appear to have a high success rate. There are three other AAOMS staff members with whom I work with in my role as editor-in-chief. The first is Beth Hayson, the AED for Continuing Education (CE), Meetings, and Exhibitions. Although the Journal is sunsetting its reader CE program, we still provide CE credits for our peer-reviewers. In both those areas, I know the very strict standards Ms Hayson and her staff hold any CE program delivered under the auspices of the AAOMS. This is necessary to preserve the status of the AAOMS as a fully accredited CE provider; this is vitally important to the success of AAOMS sponsored meetings and the membership. Like most AAOMS members, I attend many AAOMS meetings, particularly the annual and implant meetings. These are enormously complex events to plan and execute. Nonetheless, they are professionally run and highly successful. The meetings also generate substantial non-dues revenue for the Association. The second member of the AAOMS staff leadership I know, although only electronically, is Kimberly Molley, the AAOMS Chief Financial Officer and AED of Operations and Business. I mainly know her because I send my meeting reimbursement forms and receipts to her. I assume she has staff that processes them, along with what I guess are hundreds of other such forms from other members. However, in addition to overseeing this large area of responsibility, she also runs the operations of the AAOMS, including its financial affairs. This is a huge responsibility for an organization the size of the AAOMS; plus, that now includes oversight of our Foundation's financial affairs. The solid financial status of the AAOMS is a testament to her and her staff's expertise and hard work. Hopefully, I will get to meet her someday in person to thank her for all she and her staff do. I have had the pleasure of meeting, and in a few cases, working with Mark Adams. He is the AAOMS's General Counsel and in charge of its legal affairs. My interactions with respect to the Journal are limited to occasional plagiarism and copyright issues, and my contract. I know he provides wise counsel to AAOMS leadership and staff, not offering some of the questionable legal advice I see given in other dental organizations. Finally, there is one other AAOMS staff member with whom I interact in relationship to my editor-in-chief position. That is Caroline Lee, the Senior Assistant to our Executive Director, Scott Farrell (more on him in a bit). I attend the principal summer meeting of the AAOMS Board of Trustees each year to update the Board on how the Journal is performing. Ms Lee organizes that meeting each year, giving me a chance to witness her exceptional attention to detail. I am certain that is only a small example of her organizational capabilities. There is one member of the AAOMS administrative leadership team with whom I no longer have the regular opportunity to work. This is Mary Schnitzer, the AED for Advanced Education and Professional Affairs. Several years ago, I had membership in AAOMS committees related to pre- and postdoctoral OMS education. During that time, I had the great privilege to frequently work with her. She is extremely talented, dedicated, and hardworking; she's always smiling and spreading cheer while she helps members, commonly in the academic arena, accomplish their objectives. Ms Schnitzer and her staff are a tremendous resource to the Association. Recently, the OMS Foundation (OMSF) has developed a new administrative partnership with the AAOMS. Although the Foundation has no direct relationship with the Journal, my wife is a member of the OMSF Alliance Committee. Therefore, I have a chance to interact with Mary DiCarlo, the Foundation's AED for Development. Ms DiCarlo is relatively new in this position, but I can already tell she is highly effective and is a great asset for the OMSF. Foundation staff leadership also includes Bo Gasic, the OMSF's AED for Finance and Operations. She is another valuable leader in the AAOMS. Scott Farrell is the Executive Director of the AAOMS, after previously expertly running its financial affairs. Mr Farrell is a wonderful, low-key individual who not only gives sage advice to association leadership and makes wise decisions in running the organization, but also continues the recent tradition of keeping the AAOMS as a membership driven organization. His leadership skills are reflected in the performance of the staff members under his authority. The AAOMS is very fortunate to have him in the Executive Director role. Finally, when reflecting on the administration of organizations it is important to remember non-surgeon staff members in our sister organizations who help further the AAOMS's mission. The first is William Passolt, President and CEO of the OMS National Insurance Company. I know his leadership of the organization greatly assists large numbers of AAOMS members. However, I have gotten to know him better as a current member of the OMSF Board. Mr Passolt is an extremely capable individual, who happens to be very affable as well. A second person I wish to acknowledge is Erin Killeen, the Executive Vice President of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. As is well known, the board certification process plays a critical role in helping surgeons attain and maintain excellence in their clinical knowledge, skills, and judgment. Ms Killeen and her wonderful staff help make that happen by effectively working with Board leadership, candidates, and diplomates. The final person I wish to mention is Dr Catherine Horan, a recently retired staff member of the American Dental Association (ADA) Commission on Dental Accreditation. In her staff role in dental residency accreditation, I had the luck to work with her on many OMS residency program site visits. Her knowledgeable and persnickety approach to accreditation procedures helped surgeon site visitors accomplish detailed, yet fair, inspections of residencies to determine whether they met all accreditation standards. She also ran regular site visitor training programs. Dr Horan was a great benefit to our organization through her work at the ADA. As mentioned earlier, although I am familiar with and have worked with many members of the AAOMS staff, there are many with whom I have not had the pleasure to interact. Yet, all members of the AAOMS owe a deep debt of gratitude to both those I have focused on, as well as those who serve without mention. As I stated in 2015, “There is no debate that without them our association would not have accomplished as much as it has…” and “…they provide essential functions critical to the organization's success.”