AMTDA seeks new prez as Healy moves cross-town.

John J. Healy has resigned his post as president of the American Machine Tool Distributors' Assn. and will accept a similar position with another, larger Washington-area trade group. The move becomes effective August 31; he notified the board on July 7.

W. Kent Lorenz, CMTSE, the association's current chairman and regional president of distributor Ellison Technologies, Inc. (Pewaukee, Wis.), has accepted Healy's resignation on behalf of the board. A search committee has been appointed, headed by AMTDA treasurer and executive-committee member Joseph A. Braun, CMTSE, president of Braun Machinery Co. Inc. (Grand Rapids, Mich.).

Healy will move from AMTDA (Rockville, Md.) to NAIFA, the National Assn. of Insurance & Financial Advisors (Falls Church, Va.), which coordinates a federation of 900 state and local associations and represents more than 70,000 advisors nationwide. There he will take over for David F. Woods, who steps down as chief executive at the end of August but remains head of its education foundation. Healy explained to the AMTDA board that the NAIFA post to which he was recruited was an opportunity he could not let pass by and that he would be available after his move for any transition consultations.

John Healy, 59, came to the machine-tool distributors' group in November 2005, succeeding Ralph Nappi, who similarly moved away to head a different trade association. He was hired after another AMTDA search committee--that one headed by then-board-member Kent Lorenz--singled him out as an organizer that the board felt was needed at the time. Before joining AMTDA, Healy ran a consultancy firm in Washington specializing in supply-chain logistics; prior to that he'd been president of a national pallet-shipping trade group and executive VP of a Midwest grain-processing trade association. He holds a certification from the Amer. Society of Association Executives.

His departure comes as a surprise, according to Lorenz, who praises Healy's internal organizational accomplishments but says the AMTDA board of directors understands that he's moving to a bigger post. NAIFA has a staff of 60-plus; AMTDA has eight full-time staffers and two contractors.

John Healy's predecessor Ralph Nappi had been with AMTDA for seven years as VP before another 12 years as its president, and in the lean economic times before his departure he had taken the employee level from 18 down to eight. "The people that were on staff at the time had been through some tough sledding and were connected to him," observes board chairman Kent Lorenz. "So when Ralph announced his departure it was emotionally crushing for some staffers." One by one most of the office workers under Nappi also left, starting with second-in-charge Gary Schiffres, who also moved to a larger position in another Washington-based professional society. Of the headquarters staffers from two years ago, only education and communications coordinator Clara Mora remains now.

There's a different situation two years later, Lorenz points out. Although the current Washington-based staff has been loyal to Healy, its members are more independent and accepting that CEOs can come and go, he says.

   As for the search for a successor, the board
   will take three parallel routes. There's a short
   list of candidates from the search two years ago,
   and those individuals will be looked at against
   current needs. There are people who have come
   forth or have been suggested by members. And
   the search committee has contacted three headhunter
   firms in the D.C. area that specialize in
   trade association professionals.

In a meeting on July 24, the search committee felt comfortable with the list of possible candidates it is aggregating, Lorenz reports. That list includes individuals both from within the machine-tool industry and from an association-management background. It's unlikely that a replacement will be hired before John Healy's departure at the end of next month, and it's possible that an interim CEO could be named. But, says Kent Lorenz, the AMTDA board is comfortable with the capabilities of the staff, and "right now it's about the process; we're going to take our time and make the right decisions."

Amer. Machine Tool Distributors' Assn, Rockville, Md. 301-739-1200.