Volume 2, No. 22. November 26, 2002
IAAPA Report
Choicest
choices
Many of history’s greatest success stories came about by second choices.
England's Queen Elizabeth I, Ringo Starr with the Beatles and Coach Tyrone Willingham
of Notre Dame football fame were all bypassed at first and called upon after
the chosen ones faltered.
History has not had enough time to accord a suitable place for Clark Robinson,
but in his interim tenure as president of IAAPA, he turned a disintegrating
program around and helped deliver a big hit show. After first deciding against
Robinson and then watching him ably handle the reins of the association when
first-pick Brett Lovejoy’s suddenly resigned last June, the search committee
finally recommended the former Lagoon amusement park general manager to be IAAPA’s
new president, a recommendation heartily accepted last week by the Executive/Finance
Committee and the full membership.
“I have to say he really rose to the challenge, and that gave me all the
faith and all the hope that the search committee would choose him,” said
the newly installed IAAPA Chairman of the Board John Collins who called Robinson
an “absolutely superb president.” “I promise you, Scout’s
honor, I didn’t influence them because they were their own people, their
own committee. That’s the way it should be. I was so thrilled when they
came up with the right candidate.”
Outgoing chairman Alain Baldacci gave Robinson the lion’s share of credit
for getting the association through a period of turmoil that resulted in Baldacci
working with three different presidents during his own one-year tenure, starting
with longtime president John Graff who retired at the end of 2001. “Clark
started June 7 and hasn’t stopped since,” Baldacci said at the Changing
of the Gavel Ceremony Saturday. “You need some vacation,” he told
the new president.
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