2024 Presidential Update

In this episode of URMIA Matters, Julie Groves, URMIA's immediate past president and Director of Risk Services at Wake Forest University, interviews Craig McAllister, current URMIA president and Assistant Vice President, Risk Management at the University of Miami, in his inaugural presidential podcast. Craig shares his insights into some of URMIA’s recent successes in expanding professional development offerings, accomplishing the association’s strategic goals, and increasing URMIA’s already-established DEIB support. Also, Craig shares his hopes and goals for the future of URMIA during his year as president. Be sure to tune in for the first episode of Craig’s presidential podcast series!

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Transcript

Show Notes
URMIA Library

URMIA September Board Meeting Minutes

URMIA’s Strategic Goals

Join URMIA’s Specialized Communities!

URMIA’s 55th Annual Conference in NOLA, 9/28-10/2

URMIA’s 2024 Regional Conferences

Guest
Craig McAllister, Assistant Vice President, Risk Management- University of Miami
Host
Julie Groves, Director of Risk Services- Wake Forest University

Transcript
Julie Groves: Hi everyone. Welcome to URMIA Matters. I'm Julie Groves, the Director of Risk Services at Wake Forest University and I'm going to be your host for today's conversation with URMIA's new President Craig McAllister. Craig is the Assistant Vice President of Risk Management at the University of Miami, and I passed the presidential gavel to him at the annual conference in Baltimore in September. So welcome, Craig.

Craig McAllister: Hi, Julie.

Julie Groves: Before we start, will you just tell everyone how you got where you are today? I mean, is that because you wanted to be a risk manager ever since you were two or three, and you just made that path from a very young age, and here you are?

Craig McAllister: I've always believed that if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. And learning from mine and others' mistakes, here I am. After college, or during college, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. And I had a friend who was an underwriter, and he said, insurance is a great business to get into. And I said, what do you do? And he talked about sitting at a desk all day. And I said, that sounds boring. So I ended up in claims. So I was out in the field. After a few years in claims, I'd responded to an ad in a newspaper, for those that remember what those are, for a position at Cornell University in risk management. After 18 years at Cornell, the University of Miami came calling, and ultimately, I decided that I was done scraping ice and snow off my windshield, and here I am at Miami, where I've now been for about four and a half years.

Julie Groves: Do you miss anything about winters up in New York?

Craig McAllister: I miss the people. But I don't miss shoveling snow.

Julie Groves: Do you get to, is there, are there opportunities to play hockey in Miami at all? Like do they have ice rinks where you can go do that? Like ice rinks or do you just, you pretty much kiss that goodbye?

Craig McAllister: Most of the ice is in drinks-

Julie Groves: Yes.

Craig McAllister: But they do have ice rinks there. So I have skated in Florida.

Julie Groves: You could still take a little taste of the north with you to the south. Well, we don't really consider Florida the south. We just consider Florida the southern united part of the United States. It's a big difference. But I won't take time to explain that now. So, how have your first few months as president gone?

Craig McAllister: You know, there's a lot going on. But the continuity that URMIA has year over year helps make the presidential transition fairly easy. With having the immediate past president and the president-elect all together, really having that continuity with certainly home office and the executive director that just you had that expectation of what needs to get done, but we have a lot going on.

Julie Groves: There is a lot. There's always a lot going on. There's, you know, we're always moving ahead, lots of good work being done, and lots of folks at the home office helping us with that, but, you know, the volunteers on the executive committee, we're all working to kind of move the association forward. And so, you know, how are you feeling about the year that's coming up for you?

Craig McAllister: I'm excited. Like I said, we have a lot going on, but I think that our strategic goals have been giving us good guidance to continue to make the, you know, connect our members to each other, to professional development. Like I said, I'm really excited about this.

Julie Groves: Great. So, tell us about your theme for your year as president.

Craig McAllister: Well, going with our strategic goals and connect, but it's connections, and it's really connections with partners on campus who manage their own risks. How can we work with our facilities, our student affairs, audit, compliance, and all the different areas that manage risk on campus so we can all be better. In the end, we'll just help our institutions.

Julie Groves: For folks who don't know, every year at the conference, we have a board meeting right before the conference, and then after the conference is over, we always have a Wednesday afternoon board meeting. And so, what would you say some of the takeaways are from the September board meeting?

Craig McAllister: Well, first of all, the conference went really, really well. We had really great feedback and our members were happy to see each other. It was like a family reunion, getting everybody together again. So that was great. And that was my main takeaway. But from a board activity, I think that the three areas that I would say for takeaways is just the reports on the multiple avenues our members have for making connections,  whether it's the water cooler talks, in-person, zoom meetings, all the different ways we have for them to connect together. Seeing our members using the offerings, you know, the utilization or professional development. Again, taking into consideration, you know, the library and ask Lou, the conference material, the webinars, we've really had great response to that. And so, continuing to, to work to increase that even from where we're at.

And, and the third was our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Seeing all the great faces at the Professionals of Color gathering, and looking forward to work that is being done to include minority-serving institutions more into our overall operations. This is working with the HBCU group, and seeing how we can help them in their specific needs that they have.

Julie Groves: Yes. And so, as you mentioned, we have been working for quite a while. I have strategic goals, which are all about connections. So, that folds nicely within, you know, we have been working, to your point, we have had continuity over the last few years working with the board to really meet,  you know, some important goals within, within our strategic goals. So, the, you know, those are three great successes that, you know, I think we've seen too with, with all the effort we've made. So, before we wrap up, is there anything you're particularly looking forward to about your year as president?

Craig McAllister: Seeing our members a) working with the affiliates, working with the institutional members,  we've got some great regional programs coming up this spring,  in Louisville, Kentucky,  working with ACCED-I in Providence, Rhode Island,  the Higher Education Risk Management Conference from the University of Texas system in Galveston. It's been a while, but our international regional conference in Toronto this year in April. So, I look forward to seeing our members there, seeing what our members bring together when they meet with each other, and then certainly back to the annual conference in October. Really seeing that in all the different steps along the way where we continue to connect on that. One area that I'm really focused on is we talked about those connections with our partners on campus and is how can we work more with their professional associations as well so that we can help make those connections.

Julie Groves: Well, I will say that my year as president was very rewarding, and I think the same will be able to be said about your year. So, I look forward to seeing, seeing what's going to happen and how things are going to go. I'm here to help you however you need. So, all we need to really do now is just look forward to getting Jenny out of the URMIA Home office and off to her retirement so that we can have a fresh start.

Craig McAllister: That's why I was elected.

Julie Groves: To make sure that happens.

Jenny Whittington: Wait a second. I thought I was just going to be in the background here, but you had to pull me in.

Craig McAllister: Okay, cut her mic.

Julie Groves: We were, well, we're going to miss you, but you know. You know, it's hard when someone announces that they're retiring a year and a half before they actually do it, and it just gets dragged out. So we're coming in the whole stretch now, Jenny, so-

Jenny Whittington: It's getting real.

Julie Groves: We're gonna miss you. We really are.

Jenny Whittington: And I'm gonna miss everybody.

Craig McAllister: And I thank both of you for leaving the association in, you know, in great condition, so that I can step in and, and not mess it up too much. So thank you.

Julie Groves: You are gonna do a great job, we have no doubt with you at the helm. We're going to just be excited to see where things go, so. Well-

Craig McAllister:  Excellent.

Julie Groves: Thank you for chatting with us today, and we will stay tuned. Are you going to do some more Presidential Podcasts and kind of let folks know what's going on as we go through the year?

Craig McAllister: Most certainly.

Julie Groves: Okay.

Craig McAllister: Got to carry on with the Presidential Podcasts.

Julie Groves: Good deal. So, well, thank you so much, and this wraps another episode of URMIA Matters.