Jan Donley

J. Donley Associates
Vice-President at Large - Associate Members

September 2010 Report

On August 18th I hosted the first meeting for the WSIA Associate members at Group Health in Seattle.  It was very well attended by a lot of enthusiastic members eager to help define a new role for Associates in the organization. Usually, the first priority for Associate members when they join WSIA is to be able to take advantage of networking with professionals and employers in the self-insured workers compensation industry. I believe that we do have a higher mission, however, and that is to help our self-insured employers be successful and strong.  In turn, we will also be successful.  As Associate members we have a lot of talent and expertise to share with our employer members, and we want to find avenues of being able to utilize them.  In our meeting we were able to start discussing important issues and opportunities where we might be of service to the organization as a whole.

 WSIA President Katrina Zitnik opened the meeting with a discussion of the re-organization of the WSIA Board, to include Associate members in a voting capacity.  She emphasized that the organization wants to identify and mentor new leaders and encourage their involvement. Dave Kaplan, our Executive Director, helped research and create the new Board structure, and he reiterated the importance of tapping into the expertise of Associate members.  Rebecca Forrestor, the WCAC (Workers Comp Advisory Committee) Representative, explained her role on the WCAC, and as the self-insurers’ representative on the Governor’s Interim Work Group (which is currently defining issues.)  Most of the Interim Work Group discussions thus far are about “process” rather than substance.  It has been helpful for her to be able to look at the whole picture with business, labor and Department representatives.  Kathy Eims is our Associate member representing the legal community on the Board.  She gave us an overview of the work of the WSIA attorneys on current legislation.  And Cory Turner, our VRC representative on the Board, discussed the opportunities that the vocational community now has, to offer important vocational solutions to problems facing our employers.  She feels that VRC’s now have an opportunity to help educate the Board and our representation with the Department on an on-going basis, so that people can make informed decisions.

As we move through this first year of the Board re-organization, we will be listening to all of our WSIA members so that we can find ways to be effective and supportive in our roles.  I hope to schedule an Associates meeting with our eastern Washington members very soon, so that we can continue the conversation.

More Associate member meetings will be scheduled in the future, and I hope many of you will be able to attend.  Your participation in those meetings will help map out our strategy for active involvement in the organization.  I also hope that many of you will be contacting me to offer your suggestions and ideas on this subject.  I am both proud and humbled to be your Associate VP at large for WSIA. With all of us working together I know that we can improve the workers compensation programs for our self-insured employers and their workers.  Thank you for working with me on this goal!

Updated 28 September 2010

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