The Annual Family Reunion

By Ed Yoder, MBA, MHA, RT(R), CRA, FAHRA

Hi AHRA members! It’s June, which means that baseball season has started and summer is here! Election ads are running on TV, meaning it is time for our constituent voices to be heard once again. Remember, it is election time in AHRA land as well. Time to stand up and let your voice be heard on the AHRA leadership for next year and beyond. As you may know, Dave Fox is our President-Elect, but as he slides into my seat (that I have specially warmed up for him), the next President-Elect is unknown! That decision rests in your hands, and I am waiting to see what the AHRA membership says.

Jason Newmark and Ernie Cerdena are your President-Elect candidates. This is a tough choice because I can tell you that  in working with both of these gentlemen in my tenure as an AHRA board member, and most recently as President-Elect and President, they are both strong candidates with superb ethics and imaging business sense. They have both made many contributions to AHRA as leaders. But more importantly they are excellent people, and they will represent us well. I do not envy the task you have at hand in selecting just one of them to lead us into the next three years!

We also have a very strong slate of board member candidates. I really would like the membership to help me out here. As detailed in my last Link article, I am hoping to break the record for voter turnout this year! I really want my name in the AHRA record books for this one, can you help me out? Please look over the excellent slate of candidates and make your choices. These folks will represent you and me in the coming years and help guide and lead the organization. It is important to me that as I ride into the sunset and return to being an active member, I leave feeling the membership was really involved this year. It is so important we have the right leadership in place, so will you all be so kind and help me out and vote? The polls will be closing at the end of the month! Click here to vote: http://www.ahraonline.org/vote

Also, we are inching closer to the annual family reunion! I love calling the Annual Meeting that because each one of you is like family. Our association has that unique feel to it. I am a member of several other associations and they just do not have that “family” feel! I look forward every year to connecting with friends new and old and discussing imaging operations and challenges. Here is the key word that makes us unique: networking! Please plan to attend; it is going to be an awesome show! We are in Washington DC this year, giving you the opportunity to shout at the White House while earning education credits.

Also, do not forget to get YOUR team on the AHRA website. We are featuring our membership’s top performing teams. To participate, click here and complete the form, or send a photo of your team to photos@ahraonline.org along with the names of those pictured and a brief description on what makes your team a top performing team. Have fun with it, many have. I look forward to seeing these as they are always creative. Our members rock!

In closing with some musical recommendations, we finally moved into a new home. Though I am not happy with the builder and his quality, I did find comfort in rediscovering my record collection, which has been packed since I relocated in May. I came across three artists with really strong voices that just never really made the “big time.” Check out the albums in their entirety because there are some really strong tunes scattered among the hits. Search YouTube for Henry Lee Summer, Benny Mardones, and Robert Tepper. Summer has the hit “Wish I Had A Girl” and is from Indiana: John Mellencamp territory! He produced five albums that have some really great tracks on them. Mardones had a hit in his song “Into The Night” twice! It was released in 1980 on the “Never Run, Never Hide” album and again in 1989 on the “Benny Mardones” album. Tepper, who worked with Mardones and co-wrote “Into the Night” along with several other songs had a set of pipes himself and released an album called “No Easy Way Out.” You may remember the title song from this album, as it is an all out rocker and was the feature song in Rocky IV!

Turn these tunes up loud and rock on! See you all in DC!

Ed Yoder, MBA, MHA, RT(R), CRA, FAHRA is president of the 2013-2014 AHRA Board of Directors. He is the director of imaging services at Lexington Medical Center in West Columbia, SC and can be reached at ewyoder@lexhealth.org.