June 15, 2005

 

Dear TLTA Member,

I am very proud to be given the opportunity to serve as your President and thankful for your trust and confidence in me.  I have had the privilege and benefit of knowing and working with many of the preceding presidents and I will do my very best to uphold their legacy of insightful and impartial leadership.

In my first few messages, I will outline several steps we must take to make our association a more dynamic and positive force for the title industry. I believe we must make a conscious and comprehensive effort to determine and Define Our Own Destiny. To accomplish this, we need to change our strategies and our attitudes in several ways:

First: We must be proactive instead of just reactive. We in this industry are by training and tradition, instinctively reactive. As far as the work we do, there is little room to plan what happens; we mainly react to the challenges presented. 

We must readjust our thoughts when it comes to strategically planning the future of our industry. If we don’t, it will be done for us by outside forces and the results may not be what we want.

Second: We need to be more positive about everything we do in this industry and about the issues presented to us and handled through this association.

Third: We need to be proud of and confident in the way we do business.  And we need to do a much better job at educating the public and our own employees as to the nature and value of those products and services that we provide. 

Fourth: We need to be more accommodating to each other and less divisive. 

Fifth: We need to be less fearful of the future. We need to accept the fact that many changes have affected the industry in the last ten years and that there are likely many, many more coming. 

Sixth: We must be more confident in our abilities to propose changes and courageous in those efforts.

In the coming months I hope we, as individuals and as employees, can engage in an open dialogue to bring about changes in our attitude and approach towards our profession.  I believe by addressing these issues we can break down barriers that have hindered our success on some important industry issues.

I invite you to bring your enthusiasm, energy and ideas to the table as we begin this process. I look forward to working with you during the coming year.

Sincere regards,

Bruce D. Liesman
TLTA President