Board member resignation and replacement

Earlier this month, Robin Davies (at-large member) resigned from the Board for personal reasons. As Board president, I would like to thank Robin for his service to the UPA, and wish him well in all future endeavors.

Upon learning of the resignation, the Board had to decide how to deal with the ensuing vacancy. There were three options afforded to us by the UPA bylaws: a) hold a special election immediately, b) leave the seat vacant until the fall and hold a special election for a one year term during our normal election period, or c) appoint someone immediately to fill the vacancy. The first choice wasn’t ideal because it would require a lot of extra work for the staff (and board), and furthermore, turnout for special elections have historically been especially low. The second choice also wasn’t a great option, because given how early in the year it is, this would leave the Board down one member for almost an entire year. That left us with the third option, which was to appoint someone to fill Robin’s vacated seat, which is what we decided to do (in fact in my tenure on the board this option has been exercised twice before in similar situations).

Next came the question of whom to appoint. At our January Board meeting, the Board Development and Nominating Committees had identified several areas of expertise that they recommended we attempt to bolster on the Board, including legal and non-profit management expertise. We all agreed that our effectiveness as a Board would be increased if we could fill these gaps in our experience. This, therefore, was a great opportunity to seek out someone with those qualifications.

The Board quickly settled on asking Mandy Eckhoff to fill the vacancy. As an attorney with experience on other non-profit boards, we felt that Mandy would fill an important need at a time when the UPA is launching a series of organization-changing initiatives specified by the recently-released Strategic Plan. Moreover, Mandy was a candidate in our recent at-large Board election, and though she did not win a seat via election, finished in the running and stated a desire to stay as involved as possible, so we knew that she would probably be interested (you can check out her candidate statement here).

We are very excited to welcome Mandy to the Board!