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at the various networking events that are put on by ISTAT. The trick now, is to make sure that we structure and set up those networking events in the most optimum way. Jetrader: What are your goals for your tenure as president? Thornton: The ﬁrst thing I want to do is continue to develop the relationship between the ISTAT Board and the Foundation. I really want to make sure that the inner workings between the Foundation and the big ISTAT Board are very productive, supportive and seamless. When you have an organization that grows this much, naturally the scale of the organization becomes much more in need of management and ﬁxed ground rules as to how things are going to work. For example, in the early days all we had to decide is whether we were going to have steak or chicken with the dinner. There wasn’t a lot to discuss. What’s happened now is that the organization has, just by natural growth, become institutional. The trick is to manage

the organization in the context of it being an institution but also maintain the reason why we started it in the ﬁrst place: To accommodate networking and provide member services. If you look at the charter of ISTAT — and this really gets down to what I want to do — it’s No. 1 to provide member services. Those member services are conferences and all the other events we plan. The second thing is to support the ISTAT Foundation. Because the membership has grown so much, the resources that are available to the Foundation have grown substantially. Now it’s our job — our meaning the ISTAT Board of Directors and the Foundation Board — to manage those resources for the best for the members. These will be my two main objectives. It’s going to mean improving member beneﬁts. It’s going to mean creating tools at conferences and events to allow members to network more efﬁciently, and that could be in the form of apps, or different kinds of formats for the conference that we’re

exploring, that allow more efﬁcient networking in the scale we have. On the foundation side, it’s going to mean supporting the foundation to allow them to continue making grants and scholarships and supporting humanitarian efforts in an efﬁcient way, to the beneﬁt of the members. Jetrader: In what areas do you think ISTAT could grow as a society in order to meet the needs of the membership? Thornton: The growth we’ve seen in the organization has just been natural growth, and that’s going to continue in my view. It’s really about making sure the services for the members are done in such a way that it makes it effective to be a member of ISTAT. That’s going to be the trick in the next ﬁve years, in my opinion. Jetrader: When you’re not working, what occupies your time? Thornton: I play guitar, off and on. I’m in a band; I’m in the ISTAT band and I do that a ton. I ride a racing bicycle.

ISTAT 2013 Events

save the date
ISTAT Americas 2013
Sunday-Tuesday 10-12 March 2013 JW Marriott Orlando Grand Lakes Orlando, Florida

ISTAT ASIA 2013
Sunday-Tuesday 12-14 May 2013 ANA Intercontinental Tokyo, Japan

ISTAT Reception at the Paris Airshow
Monday 17 June 2013

ISTAT Chalet at the Paris Airshow
Monday-Sunday 17-23 June 2013

ISTAT Europe 2013
Sunday-Tuesday 6-8 October 2013 Hotel Arts Barcelona, Spain

Don’t miss these 2013 ISTAT events.
For more information, please visit www.istat.org.

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Jetrader - January/February 2013

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