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The 2008 Annual Meeting will be a strange one for me (and others) because it will be the last one helmed by Susan Sarfati, president & CEO of The Center and executive vice president of ASAE. Susan is moving on from ASAE & The Center after a truly remarkable career with ASAE, GWSAE, The Center for Association Leadership, and now ASAE & The Center. While she is not retiring, it still feels like the end of an era.

Susan offered me a job in 1997 when she was president of GWSAE. She did this despite the fact that there really wasn’t a job opening, there was no formal job description, she had no title in mind. Susan told me my job description was “to make us better.”

At GWSAE, she created the most dynamic, engaging, and stimulating staff culture I have ever known. Creativity ran rampant, everything was on the table, and ideas quickly led to action. Major meetings, like the first Great Ideas Conference, were developed in a matter of months. We decided to launch the Journal of Association Leadership over the course of a single week, culminating in a press release announcing its creation. Big ideas like building a learning center morphed into even bigger ideas, like launching an entirely new organization – The Center for Association Leadership. During all of this, Susan laid down a constant drum beat of innovation, risk-taking, excellence, and teamwork. For those of us caught up in the whirlwind, this was Camelot.

Obviously, Susan has had a profound impact on me. We haven’t always agreed, we’ve had our share of arguments, and my New England WASP reticence can contrast sharply with her take-no-prisoners exuberance. But she is, without a doubt, the greatest mentor of my life. Now that I lead my own organization, I frequently fall back on some of the lessons she taught me. Here are four:

1. Go for the big move. While incremental change has its place, the biggest rewards typically come from bold, visionary action.

2. Surprise, delight, and challenge. This was our staff motto at GWSAE and it is still one of mine today. We didn’t talk about exceeding member expectations. Our goal was to blow them away and, at the same time, find new ways to challenge the profession as a whole. We didn’t always hit the mark, but Susan always urged us to aim higher.

3. Don’t compromise on standards. Susan frequently expected people to move mountains. She routinely came up with huge ideas and set impossible deadlines. She wanted the biggest, the best, the most. And she frequently got it.

4. Sizzle and substance. Susan taught me that a little (okay, sometimes a lot) of flash is a good thing, as long is it is combined with substance. Details matter. Inspiring language, strong design, and wow experiences can create great momentum for an organization and bind a community together in surprising ways.

Susan will no doubt be feted throughout the Annual Meeting, which is only fitting. Even if you don’t know her, you might want to raise a glass in San Diego to her nearly 30 years of innovation and service to the association profession. She is one of a kind and worth celebrating.

- Scott Steen