(June 30, 2016) The next board of directors, which will be decided when votes are counted and revealed in August, will be without something no board has gone without in six years – two-term Director Tom Terry.
Terry, who cannot run this year because of term limits, served as president several times during his tenure, and had a major impact on the association.
When he joined the board in 2010, there was already “great turmoil” because the previous board had fired its general manager, and tapped sitting-director Bob Thompson for the job.
“As a newly elected board member and the new president, it was my job to keep the board and community focused on the future,” Terry said. “I had an advantage in that my company, Terry and Unitas Associates, had just finished a pro-bono organizational and marketing study for the previous GM. This activity gave my company the opportunity to meet and interview all the department heads, to see their current situation and their prospective plans.”
That insight, he said, was critical because it gave Terry a “real and not just image or propaganda” view of the inner workings of the association. That, and his tenure on the budget and finance committee, allowed the board to “dig right in and get to work.”
Still, he admitted there was a slight learning curve.
“The tendency for a new board member is to come in thinking nothing has been done because they rightly see what is left to do,” he said. “The most important adjustment that I had to make was to look back to see what others had done or had started and not completed. I have a tendency to look forward.”
Terry said he found a wealth of information, including several engineering studies, and identified plenty of things that needed to be tended to within the 40-year-old community. Putting an emphasis on action, Terry formed the Facilities Planning Group, which helped developed a ranking of all the major facilities that needed to be repaired or replaced.
Including the sports core pool, which is scheduled to start improvements next month, every pool in the association has been renovated or repaired during the last six years. Several major drainage projects, including those near the tennis courts, Hingham Lane and at the community center, were completed, and a new yacht club was built. The beach club was refurbished, signs were updated, several playgrounds were repaired, the administration building was realigned and the greens of the golf course were addressed.
“The most important thing that some of our OPA members do not realize is the breadth of the OPA organization, and the need for a director to care about all of it,” Terry said. “It is also a challenge to have to choose what actions to take when there are not unlimited dollars and people want their items addressed.”
Despite all of those improvements, Terry said the boards he served on did not dramatically raise assessments. According to his figures, assessments rose 14 percent during the last six year. During the previous six years, fees jumped 48 percent.
“While I never promised to ‘keep dues low,’ we did achieve a major trend adjustment to keep Ocean Pines the most cost-effective place to live in the county,” he said. “We also had the only reduction in the assessment that has ever happened in the history of the OPA. This financial picture certainly presents a different story than those who claim the boards, or Bob Thompson, are out of control.”
Terry helped establish two-day orientation sessions for new board members, discussing the business of the association, reviewing legal guidelines and touring major facilities. He also started the policy of assigning board liaisons to each of the advisory committees, whiling rejecting the idea of having board members sit on special committees that “duplicate the responsibility of staff.”
“This gave the OPA members direct contact with the staff to voice concerns and, in many cases, get action without having to raise an issue to the board for it to instruct the GM to do something which could already be addressed by the department head,” he said. “After an initial period of sorting out who still reported to who, the system has worked to the advantage of the OPA membership and the GM has extra sets of ears listening to the issues.”
He admitted the system is not perfect.
“While the direct involvement of the department heads has worked, the structure and function of the advisory committees continues to be a challenge,” he said. “The communications back to the advisory committees from the board is something I wish I had done better.”
Terry also said he “violated [his] own guidelines” when it came to one specific project – the negotiations with Sandpiper Energy.
“The Sandpiper negotiations lasted too long,” he said. “We should have allowed the OPA staff work out the agreement and bring it to the board’s for approval. The OPA members owe Bob Thompson a very large thank you for his efforts in concluding that important issue for the community. The delay in having a reserve study done is another item which I would say is working well, but should have been done much sooner.”
On a more philosophical note, Terry said the “classic challenge” in Ocean Pines was whether the facilities and amenities were meant to turn a profit. Technically, OPA is a nonprofit organization.
“The original designers of Ocean Pines got it right. They created a community, which would provide facilities and amenities beyond those in other areas,” he said.
“Like others before me, I have served on boards who faced the challenge of meeting the many and diverse wants of our membership, while still trying to oversee the OPA,” Terry continued. “The evolution of the OPA website over the years shows the impact of the OPA moving from a community being built out for vacation homes, to a community which has over 11,000 full time residents and approximately half our members live in the Pines as their primary residents.
“This organization is a nonprofit organization, which must balance the drive for ‘profit’ with the availability of its services and amenities. One of the first actions I took when I became president was to ask why the new multimillion-dollar community center was not staffed and wide open on the weekends. This was explained to be a cost-saving effort. The Community Center was immediately staffed and open for use seven days a week.”
Because Terry and Thompson, as director and general manager, both came on at the same time, the two are often lumped together – for better or for worse. Several current and former directors – and members of the public – have been critical of the pair.
That, Terry said, “goes with the territory.”
“I have always been one who welcomed new ideas, even if they have not been fully thought through,” he said. “Unfortunately, there are a few very vocal people who want everything fully scoped out with all details before they can be accepted for discussion. Or worse, announce to the community that the board has already done things, which have not even been voted upon. Also damaging are the attacks, which have no basis in fact, or worse dream up some sort of conspiracy theory, which become the truth for some of our members.
“I accept that if you are going to take a position of leadership not every decision you make will work well,” Terry continued. “Mistakes will be made and criticism of those mistakes, while not always useful, should be expected.
“As to whether this can be avoided, the answer is no. There are always going to be people and/or groups, which will not agree with the direction you believe in,” he said. “A board member must be ready to say the other side has a point, or the other side is actually right and you should join them on the issue at hand.”
Going forward, Terry cautioned the notion that firing this – or any – general manager is a cure-all for the problems facing the OPA.
“The idea that replacing the GM, regardless of who the GM is, is the first thought when we don’t like something,” he said. “The board needs to step back from individual situations and look at the body of work the GM and OPA staff have performed. While it is politically helpful to some to focus very narrowly, the good of the organization needs to come first.
“The constant threat of a change in the GM position can be and is detrimental to the staff and their functioning effectively,” he added. “No one can serve for any length of time on the board of directors or be the GM without making decisions some people will not like.”
Contrary to popular belief, Terry said Thompson has not been “driving the ship” during the last six years. Part of that perception, he said, came about during years when the board of directors was not hypercritical of the general manager.
“The impression is, since the board was not trying to grab headlines or look like they were scolding people, that they were not in charge,” he said. “Ask yourself, when you had or have a working position, did you respond positively to public lectures? Did you believe there was stability in the organization if the head people were constantly under attack?”
He also advocated rational, “nonemotional, “nonpolitical” debate and evaluation of capital projects.
“Not all capital projects can be done at once, and some may not be approved at all based on the evaluated need,” he said. “Capital projects which are moved up in timeframe to simply look like a board member, or GM, took care of things is not the way to run a quality community. Further, if there have been approved rankings of work and/or timelines established, use these assessments. Do not simply start over to re-assess again and again.”
“Reasonable” is a word Terry uses often, especially when it comes to the new crop of candidates, as 12 men and women compete for three seats on the board this year.
“How many people in the 40-plus years of the OPA have said they would lower the dues? It has only happened once in all the years,” Terry said. “Others run on partial information to present issues as if the sky is falling. The sky has not fallen in the 40-plus years.
“To those who believe the board should run everything, I ask that you ask yourselves just how that would be implemented in an organization that is as diverse and complex as the OPA has become,” Terry continued. “This is no longer a small vacation/weekend spot. It is a full-fledged community where new and complex skills are needed to follow ever-growing regulations and procedures.”
During his six years in office, Terry said the needs of multiple facilities and amenities were addressed, and he again underscored the relatively low rise in assessments during that period.
“If a 14 percent growth rate in annual dues over these six years is not better than 48 percent growth in previous years, then your assessment of where our trends are does not match mine,” he said. “Yes, there are assets like the country club, which has not been addressed. There is only so much money that can be focused on an amenity in a given time period. The course and drainage have seen millions of dollars spent on that amenity. There is clearly work left for the coming boards to take action.”
Terry’s parting thought for the next board was simple – be civil, be reasonable, and put the association first.
“Remember it is not about you, it is about Ocean Pines,” he said. “Your skills and talent will be wasted if your goal is personal attention. The board must find a way to create a working environment for success as we did for most of my years on the board.”
Terry, who turns 65 on July 3, is currently a candidate for Worcester County Board of Education Commissioner, District 5.
Terry, who cannot run this year because of term limits, served as president several times during his tenure, and had a major impact on the association.
When he joined the board in 2010, there was already “great turmoil” because the previous board had fired its general manager, and tapped sitting-director Bob Thompson for the job.
“As a newly elected board member and the new president, it was my job to keep the board and community focused on the future,” Terry said. “I had an advantage in that my company, Terry and Unitas Associates, had just finished a pro-bono organizational and marketing study for the previous GM. This activity gave my company the opportunity to meet and interview all the department heads, to see their current situation and their prospective plans.”
That insight, he said, was critical because it gave Terry a “real and not just image or propaganda” view of the inner workings of the association. That, and his tenure on the budget and finance committee, allowed the board to “dig right in and get to work.”
Still, he admitted there was a slight learning curve.
“The tendency for a new board member is to come in thinking nothing has been done because they rightly see what is left to do,” he said. “The most important adjustment that I had to make was to look back to see what others had done or had started and not completed. I have a tendency to look forward.”
Terry said he found a wealth of information, including several engineering studies, and identified plenty of things that needed to be tended to within the 40-year-old community. Putting an emphasis on action, Terry formed the Facilities Planning Group, which helped developed a ranking of all the major facilities that needed to be repaired or replaced.
Including the sports core pool, which is scheduled to start improvements next month, every pool in the association has been renovated or repaired during the last six years. Several major drainage projects, including those near the tennis courts, Hingham Lane and at the community center, were completed, and a new yacht club was built. The beach club was refurbished, signs were updated, several playgrounds were repaired, the administration building was realigned and the greens of the golf course were addressed.
“The most important thing that some of our OPA members do not realize is the breadth of the OPA organization, and the need for a director to care about all of it,” Terry said. “It is also a challenge to have to choose what actions to take when there are not unlimited dollars and people want their items addressed.”
Despite all of those improvements, Terry said the boards he served on did not dramatically raise assessments. According to his figures, assessments rose 14 percent during the last six year. During the previous six years, fees jumped 48 percent.
“While I never promised to ‘keep dues low,’ we did achieve a major trend adjustment to keep Ocean Pines the most cost-effective place to live in the county,” he said. “We also had the only reduction in the assessment that has ever happened in the history of the OPA. This financial picture certainly presents a different story than those who claim the boards, or Bob Thompson, are out of control.”
Terry helped establish two-day orientation sessions for new board members, discussing the business of the association, reviewing legal guidelines and touring major facilities. He also started the policy of assigning board liaisons to each of the advisory committees, whiling rejecting the idea of having board members sit on special committees that “duplicate the responsibility of staff.”
“This gave the OPA members direct contact with the staff to voice concerns and, in many cases, get action without having to raise an issue to the board for it to instruct the GM to do something which could already be addressed by the department head,” he said. “After an initial period of sorting out who still reported to who, the system has worked to the advantage of the OPA membership and the GM has extra sets of ears listening to the issues.”
He admitted the system is not perfect.
“While the direct involvement of the department heads has worked, the structure and function of the advisory committees continues to be a challenge,” he said. “The communications back to the advisory committees from the board is something I wish I had done better.”
Terry also said he “violated [his] own guidelines” when it came to one specific project – the negotiations with Sandpiper Energy.
“The Sandpiper negotiations lasted too long,” he said. “We should have allowed the OPA staff work out the agreement and bring it to the board’s for approval. The OPA members owe Bob Thompson a very large thank you for his efforts in concluding that important issue for the community. The delay in having a reserve study done is another item which I would say is working well, but should have been done much sooner.”
On a more philosophical note, Terry said the “classic challenge” in Ocean Pines was whether the facilities and amenities were meant to turn a profit. Technically, OPA is a nonprofit organization.
“The original designers of Ocean Pines got it right. They created a community, which would provide facilities and amenities beyond those in other areas,” he said.
“Like others before me, I have served on boards who faced the challenge of meeting the many and diverse wants of our membership, while still trying to oversee the OPA,” Terry continued. “The evolution of the OPA website over the years shows the impact of the OPA moving from a community being built out for vacation homes, to a community which has over 11,000 full time residents and approximately half our members live in the Pines as their primary residents.
“This organization is a nonprofit organization, which must balance the drive for ‘profit’ with the availability of its services and amenities. One of the first actions I took when I became president was to ask why the new multimillion-dollar community center was not staffed and wide open on the weekends. This was explained to be a cost-saving effort. The Community Center was immediately staffed and open for use seven days a week.”
Because Terry and Thompson, as director and general manager, both came on at the same time, the two are often lumped together – for better or for worse. Several current and former directors – and members of the public – have been critical of the pair.
That, Terry said, “goes with the territory.”
“I have always been one who welcomed new ideas, even if they have not been fully thought through,” he said. “Unfortunately, there are a few very vocal people who want everything fully scoped out with all details before they can be accepted for discussion. Or worse, announce to the community that the board has already done things, which have not even been voted upon. Also damaging are the attacks, which have no basis in fact, or worse dream up some sort of conspiracy theory, which become the truth for some of our members.
“I accept that if you are going to take a position of leadership not every decision you make will work well,” Terry continued. “Mistakes will be made and criticism of those mistakes, while not always useful, should be expected.
“As to whether this can be avoided, the answer is no. There are always going to be people and/or groups, which will not agree with the direction you believe in,” he said. “A board member must be ready to say the other side has a point, or the other side is actually right and you should join them on the issue at hand.”
Going forward, Terry cautioned the notion that firing this – or any – general manager is a cure-all for the problems facing the OPA.
“The idea that replacing the GM, regardless of who the GM is, is the first thought when we don’t like something,” he said. “The board needs to step back from individual situations and look at the body of work the GM and OPA staff have performed. While it is politically helpful to some to focus very narrowly, the good of the organization needs to come first.
“The constant threat of a change in the GM position can be and is detrimental to the staff and their functioning effectively,” he added. “No one can serve for any length of time on the board of directors or be the GM without making decisions some people will not like.”
Contrary to popular belief, Terry said Thompson has not been “driving the ship” during the last six years. Part of that perception, he said, came about during years when the board of directors was not hypercritical of the general manager.
“The impression is, since the board was not trying to grab headlines or look like they were scolding people, that they were not in charge,” he said. “Ask yourself, when you had or have a working position, did you respond positively to public lectures? Did you believe there was stability in the organization if the head people were constantly under attack?”
He also advocated rational, “nonemotional, “nonpolitical” debate and evaluation of capital projects.
“Not all capital projects can be done at once, and some may not be approved at all based on the evaluated need,” he said. “Capital projects which are moved up in timeframe to simply look like a board member, or GM, took care of things is not the way to run a quality community. Further, if there have been approved rankings of work and/or timelines established, use these assessments. Do not simply start over to re-assess again and again.”
“Reasonable” is a word Terry uses often, especially when it comes to the new crop of candidates, as 12 men and women compete for three seats on the board this year.
“How many people in the 40-plus years of the OPA have said they would lower the dues? It has only happened once in all the years,” Terry said. “Others run on partial information to present issues as if the sky is falling. The sky has not fallen in the 40-plus years.
“To those who believe the board should run everything, I ask that you ask yourselves just how that would be implemented in an organization that is as diverse and complex as the OPA has become,” Terry continued. “This is no longer a small vacation/weekend spot. It is a full-fledged community where new and complex skills are needed to follow ever-growing regulations and procedures.”
During his six years in office, Terry said the needs of multiple facilities and amenities were addressed, and he again underscored the relatively low rise in assessments during that period.
“If a 14 percent growth rate in annual dues over these six years is not better than 48 percent growth in previous years, then your assessment of where our trends are does not match mine,” he said. “Yes, there are assets like the country club, which has not been addressed. There is only so much money that can be focused on an amenity in a given time period. The course and drainage have seen millions of dollars spent on that amenity. There is clearly work left for the coming boards to take action.”
Terry’s parting thought for the next board was simple – be civil, be reasonable, and put the association first.
“Remember it is not about you, it is about Ocean Pines,” he said. “Your skills and talent will be wasted if your goal is personal attention. The board must find a way to create a working environment for success as we did for most of my years on the board.”
Terry, who turns 65 on July 3, is currently a candidate for Worcester County Board of Education Commissioner, District 5.