President’s letter – October 2023
“Please allow me to introduce myself;
I’m a man of wealth and taste.” (Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones)
Hello, I’m Ed Wolking. I’m the guy who often forgets to wear his name badge to the meetings. My ‘wealth’ is in my family - my wife, Mary, and our four sons, three daughters-in-law, and seven - and soon-to-be eight - grand kids. My ‘taste’ is for virtually any kind of Great Lakes fish – as well as music, especially good rock‘n roll. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Beach Boys, British Invasion, Bob Seeger or Motown. I love it all.
Growing up in the Cincinnati tri-state area, Northern Kentucky, I always had a fascination for Detroit, the old English D, and the Great Lakes. My college roommate was from Royal Oak. I was especially proud of my 1969 red Mustang coupe. Mary and I always wanted to live near a lot of water, but we didn’t see ourselves as East Coasters or West Coasters, so we took the work-related opportunity to live here. And we’re glad we did.
So here we are. I thoroughly enjoyed a 30-year career of executive leadership at the Detroit Regional Chamber, building membership, communications, regional and business advocacy and affinity programs including small group health plans. We became the largest metro chamber of commerce in the nation, with over 20,000 member firms. I had told former MCGP president Al Thomas that I would join the club when I retired. And so here I am.
Marty McMillan and a few others recommended me for what management guru Peter Drucker would call my next level of incompetence – your president. So, please bear with me. Both your new board and I are going to need your participation and support. Everywhere, we’re coming into the second full year living with Covid in its endemic form. Many still struggle with its vestiges and many community groups haven’t yet recovered.
Our club is totally dependent on members’ support and participation. We’ve lost members, which is not hard to do given our demographics. Either we’re going to grow, or we ‘re going to die. Like so many recovering from disaster, we need to rebuild. We also need to use all the tools and talents we can muster. Prominent among them is the Club Express software we are migrating to, which will enable us to be more productive and to present ourselves as an organization that ‘gets it.’ More on our opportunities for growth in the next newsletter.