President's Column - Scott E. Tarry

Dear TRF Members:

I hope our new electronic newsletter finds you in good health and spirits. The end of summer is upon us and whether you are busy preparing for fall classes or wondering how SAFETEA-LU (and I thought acronyms were out of control in aviation) may affect you and your organization we realize that your time is valuable. So we've decided to steal shamelessly from the TRB, which has offered an electronic newsletter for quite awhile now. Each TRF e-news edition will be sent directly to your e-mail inbox. The message itself will contain a note from either the TRF President or the TRF Executive Director and list of brief news items and organizational up-dates with links to additional information found on the ever-improving TRF website. We hope you enjoy the new format and find it a good resource for keeping plugged in to the organization. As always, we are looking to improve services to members, so do not hesitate to contact me directly with comments or concerns. You can also use our comment link on trforum.org.

The TRF leadership has been working over the summer to solidify our relationship with Gene Griffin and his staff at the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute (UGPTI). Gene and his staff have spent considerable time and energy building a foundation from which TRF will be able to grow and prosper. Kathy McCarthy, who handled many of our membership and Annual Forum issues, has returned to her normal duties at UGPTI. Sue Hendrickson has picked up where Kathy left off. Sue is our new point of contact at UGPTI for membership issues. Sue has been at North Dakota State University for 27 years working in secretarial, information processing and information technology positions.

Recruitment Initiative

The most pressing issue for the TRF now that we've achieved some administrative stability is to retain existing members and attract new members. These are complementary activities. This is not simply an issue of generating more dues to pay the organization's bills. It is an issue of creating an environment within the TRF that will appeal to current and prospective members. Current members are more likely to renew their memberships if they believe the organization offers them opportunities to meet new people, learn new things, and not always have to be the person who shoulders the burden of doing the work of the organization. New members are more likely to join and sustain their memberships if they have the opportunity to expand their networks, learn new things, and not be immediately responsible for the fate of the organization.

The staff at UGPTI and your TRF leadership have been working together to develop a membership campaign that will allow the organization to capitalize on its members' connections throughout transportation. This campaign will require very little effort on your part and provides prospective members with a tangible indication of the value that TRF provides to its members. Simply by logging on to the TRF website, you will be able to enter the name and contact information for transportation colleagues you think might be interested in our organization. We will then generate a letter, which will accompany promotional materials and a complimentary copy of a recent issue of the Journal of the TRF. We will also send a copy of the call for papers for the Annual Forum scheduled for March 2006 in New York City. In as little time as it takes for you to copy information from a colleague's business card, you can provide him or her, at no cost to you, with a packet of materials that will demonstrate the value of TRF membership.

I hope you will consider this innovative opportunity to enhance TRF for all its members. To see a draft of the letter and get more information about this program, visit www.trforum.org/member/letter.php 

For more TRF news, please see below. We are always looking for additional content, so please do not hesitate to share your ideas with me or Tom Jirik.

Best Regards,

Scott E. Tarry
President