Newsmakers: Rising to the Occasion

Allen James realizes that lawn care professionals don’t wake up in the morning thinking about how they can help his organization succeed in keeping plant protection products on the market.

But he wishes they did.

For the past 18 years, James has led Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment (RISE), the trade association that represents the industry of specialty chemical manufacturers, formulators and distributors. The organization he helped launch in 1991 with $40,000 in seed money has grown to spend more than $2 million annually to protect the interests of makers and users of urban pesticides and fertilizers. Yet, it faces an uphill battle – particularly as a new administration and a not-so-friendly Congress has taken office and a handful of companies have been forced to withdraw from RISE due to the financial crisis.

For James and his small staff, the biggest challenge is educating regulators on the national, state and even local level about the health, social and economic benefits of pesticide use. RISE is sort of the poor city cousin of CropLife America, their “mothership” association that represents farm chemical interests. Yet, thanks to James’ efforts and the work of myriad volunteers from around the industry, RISE has held its own over the years in preventing unreasonable laws regarding plant protection for non-crop uses.

Despite decades inside the oh-so-cosmopolitan Beltway, one sentence out of James’ mouth betrays his Southern roots. “I was a North Carolina tobacco farm kid,” he drawls. “And my first real job was as executive director of a USDA agricultural commodities office with an elected board of directors who were all farmers. Even though it was essentially a government position, it taught me a lot about the non-profit business and dealing with volunteer leadership. I quickly learned that I had a natural calling for associations instead of farming.”

From there, James went on to run a national fraternity and later to lead a Chicago-based association for the international sanitary supply industry (yes, the janitorial equipment business). But, he wanted to jump to an association central in Washington and he was recommended for the RISE job by Doug Fender, longtime executive director of Turf Producers International (the sod trade association). His Carolina connection helped during interviews, since several key figures on the search committee were fellow graduates of North Carolina State University. To this day, James – and the industry he serves – is lucky he didn’t opt to become a Tarheel or Blue Devil instead.

Jay Vroom, his counterpart at CropLife America, sums it up: “It’s definitely been a partnership since 1991. He’s exceeded everyone’s expectations even from day one. Bringing together the pieces of the specialty industry has been more than a daunting challenge and Allen has done a truly remarkable job.”

What were your expectations about RISE the day you signed on to lead the organization?
I’ll confess – I’d come from a farm background in North Carolina and didn’t know much about non-agricultural uses of pesticides. I understood EPA, product registrations, regulatory controls and such and I had a basic knowledge of working with the government. But I didn’t know a thing about the green industry and I realized quickly how little voice we had.

All the previous lobbying had been done through smaller end-user organizations. The companies depended on their agricultural counterparts to represent them, and the weakness of that strategy became very apparent in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when Congress decided it was fashionable to come after lawn care and golf. That was my first challenge. Within months, I was testifying before Congressional committees and trying to deal with serious challenges to our business.

How has reality differed from those expectations over the course of two decades?
It was quite different, no question about that. I suddenly realized I had an infant organization on my hands. I was nervous about the lack of operational money, and we were under threat from bans and other accusations that continue even today. We had to build up fast to get the resources to last over a long period of time. I wondered whether I had what it took and whether the industry would have what it takes. Later, we had our first annual meeting and the industry started to come together. Our dues structure was strong and we grew rapidly. We had 12 members in the beginning of 1991, but more than 50 by the end of that year.

Describe the current situation facing the organization.
Our revenues are now greater than $2 million annually and things continue to look good. But, given the situation we face, we’re trying to grow by another million. At the annual meeting this year the board proposed a fundraising campaign via the dues program to reaffirm and assure that pests are seen as a vital part of pest management. We call it the Big Audacious Goal. It’s less about money than it is the fact that as the world becomes greener, our industry must be seen as a vital contributor to that. We’re sometimes painted as just the opposite – harmful to the environment and even the sustainability of life on earth. Some in Congress have bought into that. We’re determined to reaffirm to the American public that we’re part of the backbone of the green movement.

We also are doing a major piece of public opinion research to get our messages right. People want to live in a safe environment. They depend on our products to keep their homes, schools and businesses safe and livable. We believe there are plenty of messages to communicate that, but we need good research to guide us in the right direction. That said, we’re willing to live with what we find. We believe that we can turn the tide, but we need to know if it’s possible to convince the American public that we’re not the bad guys.

What doesn’t the average LCO or end-user understand about the association?
It’s a challenge for our suppliers to even reach LCOs and other ultimate customers with their sales or service messages, so we face an even bigger challenge because their attention is divided between so many ways. We have to work through allied and state user organizations, and there are natural forces in play – like internal politics and the occasional turf battle – that serve as roadblocks. We have to work through as many as three other parties and the message gets changed along the way sometimes. It’s just the reality of how we’re structured.

The applicator doesn’t consider us to be a primary association or really their association at all. They’re looking to their professional organizations first and foremost. We’re always going to be an add-on source of support through those groups. A few years ago, we recognized that so many of our issues are at the local level, so we now work cooperatively with allies but also more directly through the national RISE grassroots campaign. We now have more than 1,000 applicators – end users like LCOs and superintendents – around the country who work with us on issues threatening their livelihoods. We work through local and national associations as much as possible, but we have to be there on the local level as well.

How do you do that?
Mainly, our role is to bring coalitions together. We’re still just getting started, but a much larger percentage of end users and local groups now know that when they need help, they can turn to RISE. We were getting more calls from local associations, applicators and field sales reps who know us. Those field reps are critical, but their attention is so divided because they’re stressed out trying to sell products. Also, GCSAA, PLANET and NPMA have embraced our grassroots approach and recognized that it wasn’t a competition to decide who should try to solve which problems. Now, it’s all about cooperation to build coalitions at the local level. They’ve been great partners.

How much will things change with the new administration and Congress?
Our board really had a lot of foresight in pushing for our grassroots program over the past few years. We’re much more ready than we could have been – and bluntly, we needed to be.

Key (Congressional) committees are now controlled by individuals who have a track record of distrusting our industry. The financial crisis will take precedent initially, but Sens. Waxman, Boxer, Pelosi, Lieberman and Reid will eventually get around to us and it will be much more difficult than anything we’ve faced in decades. We think we’ll see a new magnitude of attention because of the breadth of the Democratic control and the powerful people who just plain don’t like us.

Fortunately, we’re better equipped to deal with it than ever. But, on the other hand, the revenues in our industry (which drive RISE dues) are also under pressure. The marketplace has eroded dramatically. We welcome new competition (from new off-patent companies), but it’s clearly had an impact on industry finances and that puts pressure on us. We’ve lost three major members this year just because of financial pressures. Our dues aren’t inexpensive and it’s a big commitment for those companies, but we still have a strong core group of members.

What’s your take on the new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson?
We don’t know her well, but she’s out of the Carol Browner camp, so that tells you a lot. (Browner is the former EPA head under President Bill Clinton.) We’re expecting her to be close to Sens. Waxman, Browner, Pelosi and others. The real unknown is that Browner has been appointed to the “environmental czar” position – the new Office of Environmental Quality. We do not expect any support from them. That said, we will work with the new administration in the most constructive way possible. We have to work with them to make sure science is at the core of everything the agency does.

If you could wave your magic wand and have readers get motivated to go do something that would help RISE, what would it be?
Recommit at one level above whatever they’re already doing. In other words, just give a little more of your time, attention and effort than you do now. Try to play a role, get engaged and make your voice heard above those who would put you out of business. That would be fantastic for us.

The activists have a strong voice and they have the “green movement” behind them. Our entire industry must understand their place in the environment and make their voice heard. Whether it’s with RISE or with their associations, they just need to get engaged. They must step up as never before. We simply must stand together.

What accomplishment are you most proud of over your career in the industry?
It’s a simple answer – I’m proud of RISE. We’re the largest association in the world representing specialty pesticides. I’m also very proud of the way suppliers have supported us. There’s only one year that we’ve gone backwards financially – this past year, unfortunately. We’ve become respected in Washington and among the allied associations. We have very effective relationships in states such as New York, which was unthinkable two decades ago. It’s not that I take personal pride in what we’ve done, I’m just thrilled with what the organization itself has become.

I’m told you’re heading toward retirement. What happens next?
I will not be here at the end of 2010. My official retirement date is not certain, simply because of the challenges we face right now. We can’t afford to make a transition at a crisis point, and this is a crisis. That said, we need to have the right person in place before the end of 2010 because I’m ready to move on. We have a six-month transition plan in place. The board will hire a new person and I’ll go back down to North Carolina and live happily ever after.

Any final thoughts?
The users of our products are the greatest representatives of our industry. How they use our products and their professionalism in using them means everything. If customers have questions that go unanswered about the safety, value or the need for pesticides, our industry is weakened. This is a critical time – maybe the most critical we’ve ever faced – and the challenge is to be the most professional and most engaged they’ve ever been. If our users never recognized that, now is the time.