8014-R6_MSA_May2021_MaineSnowmobiler

2022 MSA President’s Award MSA Steering Committee By Mike Grass Jr.

The 2022 MSA President’s Award was a long process for me this year. Usually, it goes to someone I have noticed during the year or years that quietly goes about their business, getting stuff done without a lot of notoriety. They attend their primary snowmobile club meetings; hold a position there such as an officer seat or trailmaster. Someone who builds bridges like past recip ient Alan Dugas and is always lending a hand, never wanting publicity or accolades. President’s Award winners are always among us, just doing their thing, making sure whatever job they have is done and done well. I had a short list of people this year, which I felt all deserved the award but choosing only one was the hang up for me. So how do I pick one? I consider myself old fash ioned, conservative and don’t stray from the path kind of per son but once in a while, I like to change things up. Hopefully, I won’t upset anyone with my choice for the President’s Award. To start my story about today’s winner, I have to go back to the beginning of my Presidency, May of 2019. After I was elected, the first thing on our agenda was hiring a new Executive Director, as most of you know. I tapped outgo ing President John Monk to assemble a team or transition committee that would figure out a job description and get it done. Well, then we figured it

might be better to get someone in the office to watch and learn the ways of the office before they retired. Change of plans, now we need a job description for our office worker. Done. Hired a new office worker, we are halfway there. Back to the original job. Worked out a job description for the new Execu tive Director. Interviews, Hired a new Executive Director. New Executive Director decides the position is not for them. After some investigating, we find no road map, guidance or way for the new hire to do their new job. Issue, now we have no ED and the one person in the office only has limited knowl edge of how MSA runs from day to day. First Step, cover the “bases”. Now the transition committee needs to have the ability to take care of the day to-day business of MSA. How do we do that? Next E-board meeting we ask for permission for the now called “Steering Committee” to do the day to day. Unanimous, permission granted. Ok, there is the background to howwe are here today. So now you’re thinking, “what does this have to do with the Pres ident’s Award? Well, from that day on, some very passionate people with a love for snow mobiling have poured their heart and soul into MSA. They have traveled two hours one way to meetings in Augusta at least once a month for 3 years, sometimes 2, 3 or 4 times a month. Why, because they

wanted MSA to be better. They didn’t want anyone to see we were literally knocked back but not down. They wanted every one to see business as usual at MSA. These people did this on top of the local club duties and a lot of personal time that many of their bosses didn’t know about. And not once did these people ask for money or compensation. They did it for their love of snowmobil ing. These people are the MSA Steering Committee. They all took a piece of the MSAday-to-day “pie” that they felt strong at and got it done. Past President Bob Flagg. Only known tome in the past as “the IT guy”. Let me tell you folks, Bob Flagg is much more than an IT guy. His knowledge of MSA, past and present is stel lar. Eileen Lafland has many years of MSA history as East ern Region VP and took on a role as Membership Chair and literally set records of enter ing membership data into the MSA database. Her husband Larry Lafland, himself an East ern Region Director and past Trails Committee Chairman brought great insight, wisdom and ideas to the table. Past President John Monk took on the role of lobbyist and moni tored legislation, talking to key people in and around the Capi tol. MSA Trails Chairman had a unique role as he took care of things at his local club, made sure the Trails Contract with the state was done, met with his five inspection teams, held workshops all over the state

and was a team mate to our Treasurer Lori Hemmerdinger. Lori was actually the MSA Secretary when the Steering Committee was formed but her knowledge of accounting and budgeting had her move to the Treasurer’s position. She didn’t stop there, she also gathers all the content for the Maine Snowmobiler newspa per and edits it too. She also hooked us up with Perfect Stitch and our online store. Al Swett, what can I say, the man is an animal. We needed someone in the office and Al stepped up. He made sure the office was manned come hell or high water. A lot of the time, he was there by himself, trying to answer the phone, emails and walk in traffic, as well as get the mail, mail the mail, clean the office and on and on and on. He’s a machine and MSA is getting a good man in Al. These people did it. They made MSA happen. They made MSA business as usual all while figuring out how to do it all. We have a new postal machine. We have a new video conference system. We have a new payroll sys tem. We have a new website. We have Formstack. We have new and improved ways to do almost everything at the MSA office now. These people made it happen! Therefore, I have awarded the 2022 MSA President’s Award to the 2019 2022 MSA Steering Commit tee members.

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