Chapter Formation Spearheaded Growth

(TMA International Headquarters)

When John Collard, CTP, became TMA’s vice chairman in 1994, he and then-Chairman William Hass, CTP, discussed how best to attract new members. Although the concentration on membership stemmed in part from the need to bolster the association’s finances, it was also viewed as a way to gain a more resonant voice to help promote the services of turnaround practitioners.

“Bill and I talked about the thing that we wanted to do most, which was to promote the profession and grow membership,” Collard said. “We needed to increase the local penetration into markets where we didn’t have anything. My task then was to go to local people in a number of different locations.”

In September 1990, TMA’s Board of Directors had formed a task force to develop a prototype regional chapter structure. Seven months later, James A. Schuping, TMA’s executive vice president at the time, reported that seven chapters had been formed and that additional interest had been expressed in six other locations. By the end of the year, the original seven chapters — Atlanta, Baltimore (now Chesapeake), Boston (now Northeast), Chicago, Los Angeles (now Southern California), New York City, and Texas (now Dallas/Ft. Worth) were up and running — as was an eighth chapter, Connecticut, which had started as a satellite of the New York City Chapter.

Three more U.S. chapters, Canada TMA, and two other Canadian chapters were added in 1993. In addition to the Greater Delaware Valley Chapter (now Philadelphia), Houston and New Jersey — a second New York spin-off — were recognized in the U.S., while the Toronto and Montreal Chapters were established in Canada.

“In the early days, the association really operated on a national basis,” said Richard Wirth, managing director, Northeast, for the ALTMA Group and a founding member of both the New York and Connecticut Chapters. “Quickly what the membership saw was, for it to have value, a local presence was needed.”

Collard sounded an optimistic tone in announcing in the May/June 1994 issue of The Newsletter of Corporate Renewal, the predecessor to The Journal of Corporate Renewal, that 12 individuals were participating in a “Presidents to Be” program, the aim of which was to identify strong leaders to start new TMA chapters throughout the United States.

“I think I had about 15 or 16 locations we had picked geographically that we thought would be markets,” Collard said in an interview. “Some were interested right away. Some said they didn’t think they needed us. Some changed their minds later.”

In June 1994, TMA’s Board of Directors granted provisional status to four new chapters: the Carolinas, Cleveland (now Ohio), Detroit, and San Francisco (now Northern California). Four months later, the Board bestowed provisional status on five more chapters: Central Florida, Cincinnati, Phoenix (now Arizona), Pittsburgh, and South Florida.

Filling the Vacuum

Hugh Larratt-Smith, a principal with Trimingham Americas Inc., was a founding board member of the Toronto Chapter. He helped establish the Upstate New York Chapter in 1998 and served as its first president. Larratt-Smith said that Canadians knew of TMA because of a strong Chicago-Toronto connection that existed within the corporate renewal industry at the time. Canadian bankruptcy law was changing, and “we wanted to import some U.S. intellectual capital.”

In addition, however, Larratt-Smith said he discovered early on that the contacts he made through TMA made his job easier.

“We were in a troubled snowplow company in around 1991, and I had to go to Chicago looking for refinancing,” he said. “There was really no TMA at the time, and I didn’t know who to call for money. Today, with TMA, I could make five phone calls, and the process would be accelerating as we spoke.”

Larratt-Smith said his TMA experiences, particularly with networking, led him to propose the formation of the Upstate New York Chapter when business took him to the area and he found no professional organization that brought turnaround professionals together.

“There was a big vacuum,” Larratt-Smith said. “There was a lot going on, but nobody was enjoying the benefits of what TMA brings.”

In addition to Upstate New York, TMA added chapters in 1998 in Long Island, Louisiana, Minneapolis (now Upper Midwest), and St. Louis. Two years earlier, the Tennessee and Northwest Chapters had been added to the U.S. roster, and the Ottawa Chapter was established in Canada.

Ottawa was later consolidated with the Montreal Chapter, Cincinnati merged with the Cleveland Chapter, and the two Florida Chapters were consolidated. In addition, an Indiana Chapter that had formed in Indianapolis in 1999 later disbanded. After that retrenchment, TMA added two more U.S. chapters in 2001, Colorado and Central Texas.

Although TMA was established as a national organization, many members see individual chapters as providing most of the tangible value of their membership.

“Eighty percent of the membership prefers the local chapter or regional relationship as opposed to national,” said Wirth, who helped found the New York and Connecticut Chapters. “What we’re seeing today is a number of chapters moving to a regional presence, and I think we’ll see more of that in the future.”

In 1998, the New Zealand Chapter became TMA’s first international affiliate established outside of North America. David Auchterlonie, CTP, of the ALTMA Group, was appointed as the point person to handle inquiries regarding the development of international chapters. At the same time that the New Zealand Chapter was established, talks were underway with individuals who had expressed interest in forming a chapter in the United Kingdom and Australia, he said.

But as sometimes occurred with initial interest in establishing chapters in the U.S., the first organizing efforts in the U.K. and Australia did not produce new international chapters right away. Those efforts eventually led to the establishment of a chapter in the U.K. in 2000 and another in Australia just this past summer. Organizing efforts for a TMA chapter in France are also underway, and inquiries about TMA have been received from Japan, Mexico, and Taiwan.

Although different countries have diverse laws governing corporate renewal and turnaround management, TMA brings together professionals to discuss similarities and differences in approach.

“I think the concept of corporate renewal transcends the laws. How to rehabilitate a business, job preservation, getting a return on capital — those are things that transcend business, whether you’re in the United Kingdom, France, Australia, or anyplace else on the globe,” said Tom Allison, a managing director of Huron Consulting Group LLC and a former TMA Chairman (1992). “What we preach or train people to do is to renew a business.”

Auchterlonie predicted that TMA could grow to 20,000 over the next five to seven years, with membership evenly split between U.S. and international members. “I think the membership will grow dramatically over the years, particularly in the international markets, as the franchise name becomes much more familiar internationally,” Auchterlonie said. “I think the Certified Turnaround Professional (CTP) program is vital to that growth globally, and I think we’ll see a global CTP program that goes with that.”

Graham Moffitt, a senior vice president with Bank of America and one of the founders of the U.K. Chapter, said he was traveling on business in California in October 1999 and decided to attend TMA’s Annual Conference in San Francisco to learn more about the organization.

Moffitt, who served as the U.K. Chapter’s first president but recently relocated to Chicago, said that what attracted him to TMA was the variety of professionals involved in corporate renewal and the fact that the organization was turnaround-driven. Because of the global nature of today’s business environment, TMA members are valuable resources for professionals who become involved in multinational restructuring or insolvency issues, he said.

“I went to the conference, and I was hooked," Moffitt said. “From where I sat as a banker, it allowed me to have a more productive conversation with, say, an attorney without the boundaries of your own profession’s organizations.”

TMA’s 2004 president, Ward Mooney, said that as president, he will concentrate on ensuring that members enjoy consistent education and networking experiences that enhance their business opportunities — no matter the continent on which they reside.

“We need to cherish and honor the various chapter networks that have been developed throughout North America, the U.K., and elsewhere in the world,” Mooney said, “and make sure these chapters are given the respect and the resources necessary to continue to enhance the reputation of TMA.”