Chairman’s Message

FRED ROWBOTHAM
Chairman

Since being elected as a PORAC LDF trustee in 2010, I have been impressed with the caliber of trustees, past and present, whom I have had the pleasure to serve with. Almost without exception, the level of professionalism and caring with which they discharge their duties is beyond compare. However, the vast majority of our members rarely have the opportunity to interact with their elected trustee.

In an effort to address this, when I was elected Chairman of the PORAC LDF in 2013 I spearheaded a campaign of member outreach. I notified PORAC executives and the training coordinator that LDF wanted to take on a more active role in PORAC-led training, be it at Conference, Symposium or any courses sponsored by PORAC. I have also reached out directly to many of our panel attorney firms. I have told them the same thing: Any time they offer a training course, LDF trustees want to be there to talk to the group and make ourselves available to personally answer any questions.

President Durant and Vice President Meyer have fully supported this concept from its inception. At our most recent training Symposium, I, along with LDF Trustees Barry Donelan and DJ Wozniak, and Legal Administrator Ed Fishman, participated in a panel discussion on topics ranging from Brady List issues to rates, afterward taking questions from the group.

This month at the Castillo Harper training, Vice President Meyer gave a presentation to the group on all of the benefits derived from PORAC membership. His presentation was followed by a panel discussion facilitated by Ed Fishman. On the panel were President Durant, Trustee Chris Coulter and me. The PORAC members in attendance remained fully engaged in the discussion, asking great questions.

That same weekend, Vice President Meyer was able to secure a partnership with CAHP Credit Union in which we shared the premier vendor space on the floor at Baker to Vegas. During this event, we spoke to a tremendous number of members and made many connections to non-PORAC members who are very interested in joining.

During the same trip, Ed Fishman and I snuck away for a few hours and gave two presentations at the annual national conference of our largest single-membership group, the National Border Patrol Council.

Vice President Meyer and I have undertaken the task of reaching out to members in different venues. We found that by following the same historical map of training seminars or conferences, we were seeing some of the same members over and over. While we certainly enjoy seeing everyone, we need to engage different circles of members. To that end, we attended the California Homicide Investigators Association conference and again had the chance to speak to an enormous number of members whom we would have never had the opportunity to speak to

if constrained to the old path of member outreach.
In mid-April, Vice President Meyer and I will be speaking at the Adams, Ferrone & Ferrone training. We look forward to another engaging discussion and the chance to interact with our members.

It is tremendously important for our members to learn about all of the great things PORAC and PORAC LDF have to offer and see the outstanding job being done on their behalf behind the scenes all the time.

If your association or chapter needs a refresher on the benefits of PORAC or LDF, please do not hesitate to ask. On the LDF side, I can assure you that your elected trustee or someone from our professional staff would be happy to come speak to your group.
If you are an LDF panel attorney, the message is the same as day one when I became Chairman: LDF wants to be a part of your training seminar as well.

Finally, if you have not been involved with any of the training or meetings in your region, I encourage you to become involved. Come meet me and the other trustees, ask any questions you want and learn more about what PORAC and LDF are doing for you. Additionally, our members are always welcome to attend our trustee meetings. The dates and locations are posted at left and on our website.