In the business reading section of the Deerfield Public Library, Dorothy J. Collins grins occasionally, adjusts her plain reading glasses and seems to be idly leafing through the bulky blue and orange Encyclopedia of American Associations.
But Collins, 56, is searching through the thousands of association listings with a purpose. As founder and president of Organization Administrators Inc., she is checking the formidable bible of American associations to make sure that this widely distributed reference book has accurately listed several associations she runs, and that, true to her control-oriented executive mind, all correspondence and calls for all of them go directly to her.
Collins operates the business out of her home, which is a mile west of the library on Indian Hill Road. There she commands two bedrooms, a playroom and basement full of busy, state-of-the-art home offices.
“The big trick in running associations,” she said, “is minimizing duplicitous paperwork and unnecessary routing of communications. Associations rise or fall on their efficient handling of paperwork, communications and money. This is where the best-intentioned amateur association operators have the most trouble-and what we professionals learn to do best. Most association members are busy enough with their own clients and careers. Association work, which (promises) to be fun when they are elected, gets to be a chore that takes more and more time from their personal work.”
All five listings she checks this day are fine, all of their communications going to 617 Indian Hill Rd., Deerfield, 708-317-0033, saving myriad remailings and time-consuming channeling of calls for the Mid-America Economic Development Council, Illinois Tax Increment Association, Illinois Development Council, Illinois Enterprise Zone Association and the Business Vocation Conference.
These professional groups have about 2,000 members total, many of whom thank their stars for the day Collins took over their communications, publications and mailings. The encyclopedia has done OK by Collins.
“It’s amazing to me how she keeps up with what’s happening in the world of associations,” said Chris J. Manheim of Morris, president of the Mid-America Economic Development Council. “And more to the point, how she runs our association so smoothly. Sure, she runs four or five other associations and is well positioned for expansion as her reputation has grown, but I know she gives each of us more time and focus than we could possibly do ourselves.
“Hey, I used her report on the mopping up after the flood on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers: 48 deaths, $12 billion in crop damage, and all just as she researched and wrote it. I mean, stuff like corn crops being cut by 22 percent, soybeans down 13 percent, the smallest grain crop since 1988-information our membership needs vitally.
“I dont know how she does it, but what she does is all the grunt work associations need done, and she does it without the pressure-cooker atmosphere that many associations run by amateurs seem to exude.”
Smiling at the praise, Collins said, “Well, my husband, Ed Jr., is a fine free-lance writer and veteran journalist, and he knows how to get information from government and other agencies and put it into straightforward English. My daughter Lori works with me every day. Her specialty is following through. So she sets up schedules, deadlines, meetings, payment procedures for dues and fees, conventions, brochures, newsletters, mailings and all the rest.
“And often, when I’m stymied by a layout problem in a newsletter, I call on my son Ed III, who is a professional layout person in Chicago. He helped start this new Chicago magazine for artists and communicators, Third Word.”
In the association encyclopedia, Collins also checks the current listings of a few possibly new clients that have approached her for help and the several she might eventually solicit by sending them some of the brochures, fliers, surveys and bulletins she produces with her family team.
“By next year I’ll have to decide how big we should become,” she said with pride.
The fact that there are 23,000 associations in this country means Collins has plenty of potential clients to draw from, although she faces competition from the more than 1,000 other organization administration firms in the country.
“Many associations have strong and mysterious roots,” Collins said. “It’s hard to believe there are 50 associations of Finns alone, including one for people of Finnish-Albanian heritage.”
Husband Ed is a big, affable man who looks like a kindly football coach. A veteran free-lance newsman now specializing in feature stories, advertising copy and public relations brochures, he lends his journalistic and public relations skills to the five association newsletters his wife publishes every month and to all the brochures the group produces.
Daughter Lori Collins, 35, who lives in Palatine, commutes to her old bedroom, where she assists her mother in administrative matters.
“It’s a lot different working for mom than growing up as her daughter,” Lori said. “There’s a lot more slippage in a mother-daughter disagreement when you’re a teenager than when you’re right on deadline for a publication that has to get into the mail by 5 p.m. so that all of the invitations to that vital conference arrive in time. There’s no slippage there. I mean, Mom as boss is like any other boss-tough and demanding. It’s great training.”
Organization Administrators Inc., is a bear for details. That’s a plus Collins’ clients have come to count on.
“It was a special day when I discovered Dorothy,” said Mike Flynn of Deerfield, executive director of the Business Vocation Conference. “We had met before at a seminar sponsored by Holy Cross Church in Deerfield. At the time I had no need for her services. But I was sure impressed with her knowledge.
“A short time later I took on the challenge of building a national not-for-profit organization for senior-level executives to promote values and ethics in business. I immediately thought of Dorothy and her Organizational Administrators. Together we became a good team. While I was recruiting members and setting up chapters, Dorothy worked behind the scenes providing all of the services necessary for starting such an operation.
“We incorporated, and our law firm, Sanchez & Daniels (in Chicago), along with OA, helped us meet the IRS head-on, and we were granted our not-for-profit status. Thanks to Dorothy’s support and experience in matters of association management, our organization’s future looks bright indeed.”
Anna Abrams, the economic development director for Highland, Ill., about 25 miles east of St. Louis, and past president of the Illinois Enterprise Zone Association, said, “Dorothy Collins has given our group the professional touch it needed. We count on her to make our conferences successful, but despite her professionalism, Dorothy’s a warm person. We count her as one of our organization’s big assets.”
“It’s a pleasure to work with Ms. Collins,” said James E. Mentesti of Quincy, vice president of the Illinois Development Council. “We officers are all busy in our own work and do not have the time to maintain the integrity and efficiency of our area-wide organizations. Dorothy has served us well.”
This is typical of how Collins works, as laid out in one of her contracts: She handles administration, membership and financial services for the year for $8,500; arranges four quarterly board meetings for $1,500 total; sets up a membership directory for $3,100; produces two newsletters a year for $3,900 total, including printing and postage; and sets up spring and fall conferences for $8,708 each, including travel and on-site management, coordinating the hospitality suite, and administering the association’s payment of conference bills. She also deals with the nitty-gritty details such as finding storage space and acquiring software upgrades, staples, paper clips, pencils and pens. Clients may contract for as much or as little service as they want.
Collins didn’t learn this line of work in any school: she evolved into it.
Born in Louisiana in 1937, she moved with her family to Clinton, Iowa, at age 10. She returned to Louisiana for college at Centenary College in Shreveport, where she was studying pre-med for 2 1/2 years until financing became a problem and she returned home to Clinton, where she married.
While there, she gave birth to Lori. Collins, whose husband died in 1963, eventually ended up becoming a dental assistant.
“I gave up my early dream of going to medical school,” she recalled. “I considered dentistry but somehow ended up on the adminsitration side. In 1970 I became president of the Northern California Dental Assistants Association. This group had no staff, so officer responsibility included administration and all of the other responsibilities. It was a great learning-on-the-job opportunity.”
The best part of her California stay was meeting and marrying Ed Collins, who was the associate executive director of the Western Hospital Association.
“He became my mentor,” Dorothy said. “He knew just about everything it was possible to know about associations. He taught me to remain calm in the face of everyday crises. He advised me to look at the calendar and remember that no matter what happened, it would move right along, so the best thing to learn was keeping everything in perspective-and to put out the biggest fires first.”
Collins so loved being an administrator that with Ed’s encouragement she ran successfully for a board seat in the Kensington (Calif.) Community Service District, a kind of township trustee position. In her second successful year in office, Ed was invited to become the first executive director of the American Association of Medical Society Executives, headquartered in Chicago. He accepted and moved the family to Deerfield in 1977.
In 1981, Ed became executive director of the American Economic Development Council, which helps economic and industrial developers lure industry into communities. First task: Move the group from Kansas City, Mo., to Schiller Park.
With no staff, he enlisted Dorothy’s help in unpacking boxes and setting up a four-office suite and started conducting interviews for a staff.
Dorothy quietly suggested that the time had come for her husband and/or the American Economic Development Council board of directors to hire her or replace her with one or more paid employees. They hired her.
On this job she branched out and managed two subsidiary associations. In 1987 she was recruited by Altrusa International, a large, multinational women’s service association, to be its executive director. She worked there for a year and a half but already was beginning to think about starting her own business and working with smaller associations-an undertaking she launched in 1989.
Her first client was the Mid-America Economic Development Council, with which she had had contact during her time with the American Economic Development Council. From there the other clients started coming along.
Four of her current clients are economic development groups, and the fifth, the Business Vocation Conference, is a foundation.
“I think she’s doing a great job with her business,” Ed said. “I think there’s a lot of potential for success. I’m very proud to play a small part of its development.”
So what is the secret to it all?
Collins explained it: “Once you have a system, it’s exactly like building a house. You put down a good foundation, and there’s no place to go but up.”
