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Spring President's Message
May 12, 2008
I would like to begin my first letter as President by recognizing Debbie Austin. As you know, "Deb" served as your President for the last two years including six consecutive years as a member of our Board of Directors. In that time, Deb has chaired several committees and most recently co-chaired the Membership Committee. Her wisdom, guidance, and passion for this association have been evident in the outstanding quality of our training events and the on-going value FIRMA brings to our membership. On behalf of the Board, and our members, I want to thank Deb for her outstanding service to FIRMA and for helping position us as the premiere association in the fiduciary and investment risk management industry. I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome Bruce Goldberg and Thomas Kennedy as new Board members and congratulate Gary Pelcak (Vice President) and Bridget Kovalik (Secretary) as our newly elected officers of the Board.
It was great seeing so many of you in Orlando where we had record attendance for a FIRMA conference. For those of you who had the opportunity to attend, I'm sure you can attest to the outstanding program of topics and speakers related to fiduciary risk, ERISA, industry trends and investment advisors. These themes provided a diverse mix of training for our membership, which underscored the ongoing need to stay focused on the basics while highlighting how new risks to our business can manifest themselves in the current volatile market environment. This was also the second year we offered in-conference seminars which provided our attendees with additional training opportunities related to consumer regulations and advisory issues. We are very proud of what we accomplished in Orlando and are very pleased to have partnered with the Hilton’s green initiatives as FIRMA also looks for ways to minimize our impact on the environment. We look forward to next year’s conference as we return to New Orleans and are very excited about the opportunity to give back to the economy of this wonderful city.
We are experiencing a truly unique period in the financial services industry with continued consolidation, reminders of the risk of fraud and lessons learned from the Societe Generale losses, credit market impacts (which have yet to be fully realized), and proposals to change the regulatory oversight of our business. As we all look to stay abreast of these events, and understand the resulting changes to the risk profile of our business, FIRMA membership will continue to be a "must have" to meet this challenge.
I look forward to working with my fellow Board members towards the continued success and growth of FIRMA in providing ongoing membership value and meeting the challenge the markets and regulatory environment present to us all. The FIRMA Board and Committees continue to explore strategic opportunities to expand the scope of influence we have in the fiduciary and investment risk management industry. Please look for details of our exciting 2008 regional and teleconference training programs (in partnership with the ABA) in Hale’s letter in this issue of the FORUM.
I leave you with the following quote I found from Walt Disney which I thought was quite appropriate given the venue of this year’s conference and the current marketplace.
"In this volatile business of ours, we can ill afford to rest on our laurels, even to pause in retrospect. Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future." —Walt Disney
Annual Investment Review Guidance
March 28, 2008
http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/bulletin/2008-10.html
FIRMA Launches New Homepage Design
March 19, 2008
The Fiduciary & Investment Risk Management Association, Inc. (FIRMA) unveils a new World Wide Web homepage at http://www.thefirma.org/. The new homepage design has been developed to improve communication of current FIRMA programs and member services as well as to provide a platform for upcoming site enhancements.
Conceived and directed by the FIRMA Web Site Committee, chaired by Carol Goulding, improvements to the home page include:
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Conferences, training seminars and other programs organized chronologically within their own portion of the homepage, providing members and other professionals an overview of upcoming events sponsored by FIRMA and its partner organizations. By clicking on event banners, visitors will be able to quickly find out more information about the event and register online.
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A member news section to report on FIRMA activities, events and changes in the organization and industry as a whole.
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Links to Industry News articles complied from a variety of news sources and feeds. Eventually, members will be able to personalize Industry News to include topics and sources matching their own interests.
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Links to featured articles of the FIRMA Forum quarterly newsletter as well as links to past issues for FIRMA members.
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Titles of the most recent Career Opportunities as well as recent posts to the FIRMA Discussion Forums.
“These changes to the FIRMA homepage should help provide members with a more predictable layout for finding event, news and other information they are looking for on the Web site.” according to Dana C. Hutchins, President of Inforest Communications, a Trenton, New Jersey Web design firm who initially redesigned the FIRMA Web site in 2006. “I'm happy that we can make this incremental improvement to the Web site and look forward to continuing to refine the site over time.”
The Website Committee continues to pursue additional enhancements to the FIRMA Web site including improved individual member log-in authentication and the ability to offer information unique to each member. Said Hutchins; “By moving to individual member log-ins, not only are we improving the security of the Web site, but we setting the groundwork for improving continuing education, member to member communication and other services which will greatly improve the value of the Web site to FIRMA members.”