ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6TH, 2015, Association TRENDS will host its 36th annual Salute to Association Excellence, an annual awards luncheon which honors the brightest stars of the association community and their commitment to excellence. The event is known in the industry as THE event to attend with the awards luncheon drawing a crowd of over 500 leading association professionals each year. During the event a number of people will be honored including, Association TRENDS’ five Leading Association Lobbyists.
This year’s honorees are:
Jon Johnson – Managing Partner, Johnson & Blanton – “In the 2013 legislative session Johnson’s firm, which represents 16 associations, assisted the Florida Engineering Society in passing a crucial lawsuit reform bill that protected individual engineers from wrongly being sued. The most recent session in 2014, Johnson worked with lobbyists for the Florida Healthcare Association to pass litigation reform surrounding nursing homes. This resulted in a bipartisan effort and saw a compromise emerge between nursing home owners and trial lawyers.”
Patricia Rojas-Ungár – Vice President, Government Relations, U.S. Travel – “In 2013, U.S. Travel launched a campaign to reduce delays for international visitors when they arrive at U.S. gateway airports. Rojas-Ungar’s advocacy efforts resulted in a presidential executive memo calling for the development of a national goal to improve service levels for international visitors and to remove unnecessary travel barriers. Congress also weighed in by approving enough resources to hire 2,000 new Customs and Border Control officers to process travelers more quickly. In 2014, Rojas-Ungar’s efforts to reauthorize Brand USA have delivered strong bipartisan approval by the House of Representatives and further cleared the Senate Commerce Committee. Focus is now on full consideration by the U.S. Senate before the end of the year.”
Neil Snyder, MPA, CAE – Director of Federal Advocacy, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association – “Snyder worked with the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee staff to craft and send a request letter from the full and subcommittee chairmen to the General Accountability Office, to launch an investigation into the conflicting and burdensome requirements surrounding the delivery of services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. GAO accepted the request and is meeting with stakeholder groups including my association, among others. A report from GAO is anticipated in 2014 that will help guide legislative and statutory changes in advance of an IDEA reauthorization by Congress.”
Christopher Vest, CAE – Director of Public Policy, ASAE – “Over the past couple of years, Vest and the ASAE public policy team have worked to ensure a better understanding on Capitol Hill of the importance of allowing government employees to attend outside conferences and meetings to receive training and exchange knowledge with the many industries and professions represented by associations. Vest and ASAE also continue to meet with congressional offices to convey the impact that various tax reform proposals would have on the revenue-generating activities of associations.”
Nominations for honorees were accepted year-round and from across the country by the lobbyists’ peers, colleagues and other association executives. To be eligible all nominees are either lobbyists who are on staff at an association or were hired to represent an association. Nominees can represent associations at the local, state, regional and national levels. Taken into consideration is the work (not necessarily successes because lobbying can be a slow process) of the nominated lobbyist in the past 2 years.
