I spent three years in the mid-90’s working as the Executive Director
of a scientific society. It was an interesting detour in my career–I
learned about everything from event planning to government affairs–by
the seat of my pants, and definitely without a license. Fortunately I
was lucky enough to have some excellent mentors–and particularly for
those trips to Capitol Hill, the friendship of two former
congressional staff members who were nice enough to tutor me in what
to say to a member of congress (and more importantly what not to say).
One of the most interesting aspects of my job was actually
heading up a 501(c)3 nonprofit and having to learn to get along with a
governance board (in scientific societies termed “council” but acting
as a board of directors). For nonprofits, there are several models for
governance–I suppose it was lucky, given my relative inexperience,
that our model was strong board-weak CEO. I was to learn however that
in practice a model with greater equality between the CEO and the
board is typically best for the organization.
That scientific society was also where I cut my teeth on building a
web site, working with databases and developing the interpersonal
skills that I find myself using, even as an academic administrator
here at George Mason.
Most importantly, those years gave me the experience which most active
faculty scientists never have: learning how difficult and complex the
work of crafting science policy can be–and how it’s rarely the folks
in the limelight who have done the most challenging of the work.
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 