Two Modest Proposals for Our Future

Dear Colleagues,

Well, the home stretch is beckoning so I’d like to return to focus on the crucial issues of this election. To me the future of our venerable organization is priority number one.

Here in Pasadena the presence of prestigious Cal Tech has helped spawn an entire industry of biotechnology “incubators”, small companies/labs working on state of the art ideas and then contributing the results of these ideas to the academic, intellectual, health care and yes, even the business world(s). While the analogy is far from perfect I envision an APsaA of the future where our national and local organizations are similarly fertile.

Here are two ideas which I think can help us accomplish this, perhaps even more quickly than at our historic geological pace.

First: After five year’s experience as your Treasurer, combined with a prior four years as an elected Councilor-at–Large, I can tell you that while our resources are sufficient for our basic functioning, they are insufficient to carry out the innovative and forward-looking initiatives which our role and responsibility as a pre-eminent psychoanalytic organization require.

We need to involve ourselves in contemporary processes of resource development. In my nine years of service (and counting) as Trustee of a small liberal arts college, we have undertaken a major capital campaign that has added $50 million dollars to an endowment which had been almost non-existent. I have also had the experience of overseeing the growth of our own reserves over the past five years, through some difficult market periods. In short, capital development and appropriate investment are essential for our successful future.

Second: We must give high priority to our public information efforts. In my tenure on the Executive Committee, we have gotten invaluable help through the addition of a full-time staff member. However, we need to do more. I would make the Committee on Public Information a major player in our organization and support them in developing new ideas to raise our profile further. The use of public relations resources has been controversial to some members, but the time has come to put such efforts front and center, in creative, nuanced, and effective ways.

I am excited about the opportunity to undertake these new steps, and hope we can all engage in a process that can further the development of our organization as a place of creativity, depth, and resourcefulness.

Warren R. Procci, Candidate for President-Elect, APsaA