By now, American Numismatic Association members should have received their paper ballot or the email saying the electronic ballot is available.

Now is the time for all good members to vote for the sake of the association.

Thankfully, the state of the ANA is calmer than in the past. Finances are stable, lawsuits have been settled, upheaval in Colorado Springs has settled, and the ANA has a technology platform it could be proud of. I happy to have been a part of the technology upgrade process that made a liar out of a current member of the Board of Governors.

Both Tom Hallenbeck and Walt Ostromecki have done well as the last two presidents leading the ANA out of its problems. What I know about Jeff Garrett, the ANA should be in good hands. But that does not mean the rest of the Board of Governors can be ignored. As we have seen, there are good reasons to choose wisely.

Endorsements

Jeff Garrett is running unopposed for president and Gary Adkins is unopposed for vice president. Both are good people and will provide great leadership for the ANA. While I have no objections to either holding these respective offices, I wish they did have some competition. It has been a while since there have been choices for these offices.

Since the ANA Board of Governors includes the two executive offices and seven governors, it is my preference to see a turnover where new people have a significant presence over members who are being re-elected or have been governors in the past. New people come with new ideas. Keeping the ideas fresh with a tie to the past is the best way to go.

With Garrett and Adkins running unopposed from the current board, I will only endorse one member of the current board for re-election. To continue with the current leadership, I am endorsing Tom Mulvaney to return as Governors.

There are a lot of reasons to endorse every member who is not a governor for the four other positions. Each has their strengths, weaknesses, positives, and negatives. But when looking at the list of candidates, three jump out at me with different backgrounds who I think would be good to have as a member of the Board of Governors. These people are (in alphabetical order): Steve D’Ippolito, Richard Jozefiak, and Oded Paz. I have either met all three or met people who have wonderful things to say about them. All are worthy of an endorsement.

Christopher Marchase will be my last endorsement. I have not met Mr. Marchase and all I know of him comes from his online statement. But his online statement begins, “I believe the future of the ANA is the millennials and the young numismatists…” then talks about expanding the ANA online presence and expanding its technology. As a member of the Technology Committee, I am in violent agreement with everything he said in his first paragraph. How I could not endorse someone like this!

As you noticed, I did not endorse seven Board of Governor candidates. Although I filled out a complete ballot, I do not feel strongly in favor or against the other candidates.

Why I did not run again

Over the last three years working with the Technical Committee, I have learned a lot about how the ANA works and think I could make a difference. But as my regular readers have noticed, the amount of writing has declined. This is because I started a new business, Having-Fun Collectibles. Having-Fun is all about having fun collecting. We deal in collectibles of all types—all the fun items that remind you of yesterday. Having-Fun is on eBay and The Antique Center in Historic Savage Mill (Savage, Maryland). Starting a business takes a lot of effort and requires my personal attention that prevents me from committing the time necessary to be an effective Governor.

I am also proud of the work that the ANA Technical Committee has done in moving the ANA forward with using technology to create more outreach opportunities. The upgrade and moving forward of technology in support of the ANA’s mission was my primary platform. Now that the platform is there, the priority should change to expanding programs using the technology to create outreach to younger collectors.

The ANA continues to have issues that have yet to be addressed including personnel matters, highlighted by the transition of five executive directors in 15 years, and two lawsuits with the second recently settled. The next board must address these issues and ensure a level of management that may still be lacking.

I will continue to write about my numismatic experiences here and hope to return as an active member as soon as business allows.

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