PPA’s Leadership and Recent Events

Professional?

Having recently returned from Imaging USA and the Council meeting for the Professional Photographers of America (PPA), I want to address a situation with PPA leadership that has been showing up online in various places.

There are two aspects to the situation: what happened and where we go from here.

The latter is more important than the former.

The situation involves the PPA Board of Directors[1] making changes to the organization’s leadership a few months ago, specifically not having the current Treasurer and Vice President (Pete Rezac and Allison English-Watkins) move into the Vice President and President roles, respectively.

Based on the resulting online outrage, speculation, and threats going into the PPA Council meeting a few days ago, there wasn’t really an opportunity for a win-win outcome. There wasn’t going to be a solution where everybody was happy.

Much of this talk and speculation by various parties comes from those with a small slice of the information or limited involvement in PPA leadership.

I’m currently a member of the PPA Council. I was elected last summer by the PPA members to represent Washington State. This is my first three-year term on the Council, but I have been quite active in the PPA world for many years, including serving in key leadership roles for both the Oregon Professional Photographers Association and now the Professional Photographers of Washington, where I’m currently the Vice President.

When this situation first became known to councilors last fall and the online fallout began, PPA Past President Rob Behm commented to the other councilors here in Washington that we should not be afraid of the drama, but embrace the responsibility.

I haven’t shared about this situation publicly, as it was not the right forum until things were resolved with the appropriate parties in the appropriate venue. That venue was the PPA Council meeting held a few days ago near Dallas.

The scenario began with a disputed procedural issue around the election of next year’s PPA board. Stories vary on whether it was done correctly or incorrectly. Still, regardless of the mechanics, the outcome was that in a six-week period, the PPA Board of Directors made a shift from unanimously moving down one path (moving the current Treasurer and VP into the VP and President positions) to voting 9–3 to move down a different path where the current President would remain in place and the other two individuals would see their Officer roles end at the end of their current terms on March 1st.

There are times in any job or volunteer role where a sudden change in someone’s status may be necessary. If an employee steals from a company or starts a fistfight with a coworker, it’s likely appropriate to dismiss that person immediately.

Absent one of these extremely drastic situations, it’s usually not a surprise for either party involved when somebody gets fired from a job. The person being fired already knew their performance wasn’t up to par and that they were at risk. Similarly, their supervisor knew this wasn’t a top-performing employee.

It doesn’t seem that anything egregious occurred. Why did the PPA Board feel that such a sudden shift was needed, but under the circumstances, folks should finish their terms four months later? If there had been a serious transgression, wouldn’t the Board of Directors have immediately removed the two individuals from their positions?

Prior to the Council meeting, I spoke directly with most of the parties involved with the situation because I wanted to hear what had happened directly from the sources. I had several of these face-to-face conversations in Dallas prior to the Council meeting.

Unfortunately, the stories didn’t line up. The descriptions of the situations varied, and it was a bit of a “he said, she said” type situation. Without a clear picture of the truth, there’s no value in sharing details of my recollection of conflicting stories.

We went into the PPA council meeting with a motion proposed to recall the Board of Directors. Going into the meeting, I had not decided which way I would vote, but based on the information I had, it appeared the current board was not operating effectively and a fresh start might be needed. The recall wouldn’t necessarily mean that none of the current Board members would end up on the Board, but it would mean that they would need to be reinstated.

Here’s what I shared when I spoke in the Council meeting.

Procedural issues are going to happen. Professional photographers aren’t professional parliamentarians, and if there is a procedural issue, the correct and courageous thing to do is to acknowledge it, understand what was done incorrectly, and do better next time.

Personalities happen in the PPA world and in every organization. Sometimes someone gets excited and something might be said that wasn’t as respectful as it should’ve been. When that happens, the courageous thing to do is admit that it’s happened, apologize to the folks involved, and do better.

The culture of an organization is both what they choose to do intentionally, but also what they allow to happen and what they accept.

The PPA council is faced with a choice. Based on what we believe occurred, was it acceptable within the PPA culture, or should the PPA council exercise a lot of courage to send a statement that the correct outcome is to refuse to tolerate what happened?

The recall would have sent that message.

When the Board of Directors was working through things last fall, there was a letter outlining some leadership concerns. The letter wasn’t shared with the entire Board because they were concerned it would leak. It raises a serious question: if the Board can’t even trust its own members, can Council (and the PPA membership) trust them?

The Council voted not to recall the Board of Directors.

It was not a close vote. Approximately one-quarter of the Council voted for the recall. The majority chose to keep things as they were, with the same players remaining in Board roles.

After the recall vote, I had short conversations in the hallway with two Board members.

One of them approached me and thanked me for my comments in the meeting, noting that even though we had differing positions on this issue, I raised at least one issue that he hadn’t previously considered. He was courteous and professional. With another board member, I approached him and thanked him for sharing his perspective in the meeting, noting that things weren’t as black and white as some think it was. Unfortunately, he was pretty hostile to me, claiming that it seemed very black and white to him, and that he doesn’t understand why anybody would think otherwise.

I’m disappointed in the Board, and I’m disappointed that Council was unwilling to hold the Board accountable for questionable action with a lack of transparency. Although the recall effort failed, I hope that everyone sees it wasn’t just a couple fringe wackos, but a nontrivial portion of the Council who does not have confidence in the current Board.

The photography world moves forward. I’m going to work to serve the PPA members of Washington. I’m going to work to effect some changes to reduce the chances of another similar situation. It is a distraction from the organization’s mission.

Unfortunately, some good people have had their reputations harmed.

It’s unfortunate that some misinformed or partially informed people have been making a lot of social media noise without knowing much of the story.

It’s unfortunate that people rushed to a lot of judgments before things could play out in the appropriate forum to handle this.

If we’re professional photographers, let’s act like them.