In case you missed it, the call for nominations for the PASS Board of Directors went out yesterday; there are 3 seats that need to be filled this year, and PASS is trying to be very open about the nomination and electoral process this year. I thought I would post a couple of links here (in case you missed them), as well as my brief perspective on parts of the process.
General Information
First, there’s the general home page for the 2010 Elections: http://elections.sqlpass.org Not much to day, but here’s where you can find answers to a lot of your questions about the application and nomination process, and it will continue to be updated as candidates are chosen. Of special interest to most people is the section labeled “How Does It Work?”; in one short paragraph (copied below), the nominations procedure is well-summarized:
The elections process starts with the nomination application. Applicants are screened and ranked by the Nominations Committee. The top applicants are invited back for an interview. They are then again ranked by the Nominations Committee, which presents an election slate to the Board of Directors for review. The top interviewees become the official candidates when the Board of Directors approves the election slate.
Additional links going into greater detail are also in this section, including a timeline and an in-depth walkthrough of the 2010 elections procedure.
So you think you have what it takes?
On the right side of the page are a couple of links; one for the actual application (APPLY NOW), and one for What does it take to be a Director? The latter is probably THE most important link on this page in terms of transparency because it lays out the general guidelines for choosing a candidate from the small pile of applications we (the Nominations Committee) hope to receive. Be sure that you spend some time on this information (if you’re interested in applying), but realize that much of it is describing the IDEAL candidate, which may or may not exist in the real world. Think of it like you would any job interview; your skills may be a perfect fit for most of the criteria, but you’re probably going to have some weak spots as well. However, other candidates will have the same limitations; the Nominations Committee is looking for people that are generally qualified to perform the job needed, and we will be picking the best candidates from the list of applicants.
How many applicants will make the slate? PASS bylaws require that the slate be made up of (n+1) candidates, where n equals the number of Board seats available. There may also be no more than (n*3) candidates, so for this election with 3 Board seats available, we (the NomCom) hope to present between 4 and 9 candidates for election. However, if we do not receive enough viable applicants to move forward with filling all 3 seats, the Chair of the Nominations Committee has the right to present a smaller slate and leave seats open; this is NOT an ideal situation, so please APPLY NOW if you are generally capable of being a Director.
Who is the Nominations Committee?
The NomCom for 2010 is:
Wayne Snyder (Chair)
Thomas LaRock
Rick Heiges
Rick Bolesta
Judy Christianson
Denise McInerney
Stu Ainsworth
Brief bios can be found here.
