ASBO International’s New Executive Director is at the Heart of it All

John Brucato (00:03.786)
Hello and welcome! I'm really excited for all of you listening to tune in today and even more excited for our first episode and what better way to kick it off than with Jim Rowan. He's the new executive director of ASBO International. Jim, welcome on School Business Matters. I'm so happy to have you.

Jim Rowan (00:47.804)
Thank you, John. Glad to be here.

John Brucato (00:50.193)
Yeah, so it just kind of made sense. I mean, kind of a new brand or a brand new reboot. You're coming into Asbel International as of today's recording. I think this is your official second day. So thanks for carving out some time for me so early in your career here with Asbel International. But maybe can you just give me a little bit of history of how you've arrived at this executive directorship today? Just give the listeners a little taste of what kind of.

your career and kind of how your directory has brought you here.

Jim Rowan (01:23.998)
Absolutely. Well, you know, right out of high school, I went into the United States Navy and spent four years.

really trying to find who I was as an individual. And the military taught me a lot as it relates to attention to detail, service to others, discipline, all those things that I needed coming out of high school. I was honorably discharged in 1986 and proceeded to night school for 12 years to get my undergrad. But while I was doing that, I started a government career with the state auditor's office in Ohio auditing public school districts. And

how I got a taste for what school CFOs do. As a result, once I received my degree, I became a licensed school treasurer in Ohio and I spent 20 plus years doing chief financial officer work throughout five different school systems. Back in the early 1980s, I actually, or actually it was the early 1990s, I met a gentleman who was a director on the ASBO

directors, I was actually auditing his public school district and he talked a lot about ASBO International. And so when I received my first SBO job, I joined ASBO International immediately and I've been a member for 30 years. A 30-year member of ASBO and also Ohio ASBO. And so I had the opportunity to serve on a number of committees, attend a number of conferences, got involved on the legislative committee ASBO International and ultimately I was elected director

John Brucato (02:45.79)
Wow.

Jim Rowan (03:02.288)
2007. I'm past president of Ohio ASBO in 2003 and ASBO has just been a great part of my life, my family's life, my kids grew up going to ASBO conferences with me and just the network and the collaboration and the friendships that we've created has led me to where I am today and I assumed the role of executive director with Ohio ASBO in 2016 and my last

Jim Rowan (03:32.348)
team on January 1st. So this is my second official day on the job and it's exciting. A lot of work to do but I'm really looking forward to getting out and talking to our members and really taking ASBO International to the next level.

John Brucato (03:48.709)
That's great and I mean quite a busy 30 year career I have to say Jim. I mean you've run the full gamut so I couldn't think of anyone better suited for this directorship because You know you've you can practice what you preach. You've been in the seat. You've been an auditor You've been a school business official. You've been a director of a state as Bo so it kind of only makes sense To have this ascension to as Bo internationals directorship. So Focusing more on the directorship

the director of Ohio ASBO and how is that going to kind of help you out in this new role?

Jim Rowan (04:24.818)
So when I took the position.

with Ohio ASBO in 2016, I was just coming off a four year stint as a town administrator in a community just north of Cincinnati, about 60,000 residents where I led a team of a number, 300 employees with fire, police, parks, roads, administration, zoning, planning. So I really had an opportunity to sit in that CEO seat for four years before coming to Ohio ASBO.

school business official, you are a leader on the financial side of the business, but you don't really, at least in Ohio, you don't really serve in that CEO superintendent role. So having the ability to go and lead a town for four years really gave me some experience in how to manage teams, how to focus on the strategic plan and the vision of the community. And when I was able to get to Ohio ASBO, being a longtime member, I knew a lot of the

John Brucato (05:08.073)
Sure.

Jim Rowan (05:27.872)
a lot of the members and OASMO was in a great position. We were able to, due to the planning of previous boards, we were able to save some money and acquired our first conference center in 2019, just prior to COVID hitting. I think we had the grand opening in December and then we were off on COVID leave the following March. Exactly. But Ohio ASMO has grown significantly.

John Brucato (05:51.153)
Yeah, good timing, right?

Jim Rowan (05:57.973)
over time and I remember back when I was on the board in the early...

2000s, we had a staff of maybe three or four. Today, there's a staff of 10. So they've seen significant growth. So being able to lead that association with a great team, a great board, where we were our member focus was on a lot of the same things that we're focusing on ASBO, advocacy, collaboration and networking, professional learning, all those threads are very common amongst most of our state affiliates and at the national level. So having

John Brucato (06:08.121)
Mm-hmm. Wow.

Jim Rowan (06:34.164)
years at Ohio ASBO and being able to experience firsthand what it means to address a membership and to collaborate with the members and really provide the services necessary to make them successful at SBOs just puts me in a much better position to work with this great team at ASBO International in moving ASBO into the future.

John Brucato (06:54.397)
Yeah, that's great. I mean, that experience is crucial, I think. And can you tell me a little bit more about your transition from a school business official role to being an executive director, maybe more relevant to Ohio because you had more experience there. Did you feel like that gave you more of an advantage having sat in the SBO seat or in hindsight, did it maybe cloud your judgment in terms of now being, then being a CEO rather than the school business official?

Jim Rowan (07:23.234)
I absolutely felt it was a benefit to have sat in the seat of an SBO because I can relate firsthand to the challenges that they face every day in their district. And so knowing that, I think just puts me in a better position to be able to respond to their needs. If I was coming in from an outside organization where I didn't really know the ins and outs of

of how a school operates on the finance side, there would be a little bit of a learning curve there to really understand what it takes to be an SBO. So having that 20 plus years experience sitting in the role of an SBO, I think just allowed me to continue serving public K-12 education, but instead of sitting in the seat where I was doing things every day, it's just really providing the leadership programs and services that they need to be successful.

John Brucato (08:11.625)
Great, great. So as you gear up on your second day of Executive Director of Hasbro International, what are you looking forward to most and what is your kind of trajectory and vision for the next year or so?

Jim Rowan (08:29.314)
So part of my interview process was really to reflect on an operational assessment that was conducted by an outside firm with a lot of input and feedback from executive directors, past presidents, staff and board. And so part of my interview process was to reflect on that assessment and really illustrate what my plan would be for the next five years. What's Asbo International going to look like in the year 2029?

that assessment and sent that out to all the executive directors, all the past presidents. I have a leadership team meeting later today with my senior staff. I'll be walking through that presentation, sharing with them, this is what we've heard and this is where we as a team have to go to be successful five years from now. And so charting that path and creating value.

for membership is priority number one. The thing that I've heard loud and clear on my, I worked with ASBO a little bit through December as a consultant and I've done some outreach already and there's a common thread out there, how does ASBO stay relevant? How does ASBO meet the needs of today's SBO? So we know what the states do, they do a lot of specific things that.

that deal with state-specific. So how does ASBO separate itself and help to complement what's going on at the state level? What kinds of programs and services can we bring? So I look forward to working with my team in breaking down that assessment report, taking a look at the opportunities and the weaknesses that were identified and turning those into positives and really engaging our members and talking about what brings value

to them is going to be at the forefront. And every affiliate is different. The needs in New York, the needs in Ohio, the needs in Kansas, Colorado, Missouri are all gonna be very different. So really drilling down and understanding what does ASBO have to do to bring value to your state and to your members is gonna be very important in our success.

John Brucato (10:38.261)
And I'm sure you may find this throughout your process and your conversations with your staff, but how do you walk the line of not cannibalizing professional development opportunities that individual state ASBELs offer to their members, but still being able to add that value as an international organization?

Jim Rowan (10:56.586)
Well, I think it happens through collaboration and understanding that value proposition. We know that the specific content that's delivered by each state is gonna be pretty much, it's gonna be better than anything ASBO can do because the things that are needed in New York ASBO and Ohio ASBO are much different. So let's take a look at the programs.

and educational opportunities that we can provide that are not being provided at the state level. And I think that's one area that we can make a difference. Providing a learning management system that we have at Aspen International to a small affiliate that has no access, that creates them an opportunity to provide online learning. I think those are some opportunities. Credentialing, providing certificates like the SBO program to other affiliates might be of some value.

really know exactly what it's going to look like until our engagement period is over. I'm looking at a 90 to 100 day outreach plan here before we actually kind of put pen to paper and really try to figure out what it is that we need to focus on over the next 12 months for sure but even looking out three to four years. Part of that I'll be asking the board at the January 18th meeting to create a Vision 35 Task Force which is going to be a continuation of the 2005

force that the board created that basically looks into the future 10 to 12 years to see what it is that we have to do to meet the needs of the future SBOs. So we're going to take that task on over the next six to seven months and engaging our membership to find out what ASBO needs to be doing.

over the next three to five years. We know artificial intelligence is here. How are we going to address that? Back when I was a school business official and I was looking for leadership training on how to deal with difficult people or situational leadership, I had to turn to the American Management Association to get that training.

Jim Rowan (12:53.866)
possibly there's a void there that Asbo International could step up and provide some of that leadership development that states don't provide right now because they're either short staffed or they're focused on specific content relating to their affiliate.

John Brucato (13:07.953)
Wow, so 10 to 12 years, that's a pretty lofty timeline and a large goal. I mean, is this something that you see you in this committee kind of working on and putting a stake in the ground, this is where we're gonna be, or is this gonna be kind of an evolving process or a living document or process?

Jim Rowan (13:26.354)
So when the Futures Task Force was created in 2004, the report was issued in 2006, and then that task force disbanded. But one of the recommendations was that every few years, it needs to be revisited just to make sure that you're staying current with what's happening in the future. So the way I envision this task force working is taking a look at that report from 2005, 2006. There are a number of recommendations that were made. First of all, reflecting on what was accomplished

what actually came to fruition, what opportunities are in the report that still exist, and then take that and build upon that and look out, yeah I say 10 to 12 years, but in all reality what do we need to do in the next three to five years and how do we keep this a living document so that in three to four years we revisit that so that we're always staying relevant to meet the future needs of our next generation of SBOs.

John Brucato (14:19.433)
And who do you see being involved on this task force and how big is this task force?

Jim Rowan (14:24.586)
Well, we haven't determined the number yet. I have asked my immediate past president, John Hutchison, to chair the task force. And I look to try to pull in.

our past executive director from Indiana ASBO, Denny Kesterason, who chaired the 2005 committee. And then Melanie Douglas is the past president from Alaska who served as the board liaison to the 2005. So I'm gonna ask them to serve from a historical perspective. And then we're going to engage in an application process that we're gonna send out to our members. And really just to gain...

John Brucato (14:45.24)
Oh great.

Jim Rowan (15:04.426)
those that are interested in serving on this and have them share with us their vision or what contributions they can bring to the table. And then we'll work with the board and figure out exactly what the right number of people on this committee and we'll move that forward. So we hope to make a full announcement, not of who's going to be on the task force, but what the task force is all about at the leadership conference in San Diego in February.

John Brucato (15:29.193)
Oh, awesome, awesome. And in terms of the application process, do you know when approximately that might be available to membership or is it still kind of in the works?

Jim Rowan (15:39.742)
Yeah, so our hope is that the board approves it January 18th.

then we launch the application process the Monday following, which I believe is going to be like the 22nd or 23rd, and then leave that application period open for about four weeks. That would also give us an opportunity to promote it at the leadership conference, take those applications in, work with the chair of the committee, and then just, what we wanna make sure we have is a very diverse group representing various regions, various size school districts.

John Brucato (15:57.333)
Great.

Jim Rowan (16:14.676)
various age groups to make sure that we recognize all the needs of all of our members.

John Brucato (16:21.669)
And do you see this task force membership being a pretty heavy lift? So basically if you apply, is it gonna be a lot of time that you have to commit or what do you kind of see?

Jim Rowan (16:31.678)
That's a good question. So right now, I've reached out to a facilitator to give me a proposal on what this could look like. I'm envisioning, probably kicking this thing off sometime in March, and maybe having, there would be Zoom meetings, I would suspect somewhere between two to four hours a month. And then hopefully bring the whole committee together at the annual conference in Nashville, where the final report would be

John Brucato (16:47.273)
Okay.

Jim Rowan (17:01.718)
uh, vitalized and then maybe even approved by the board, uh, at that point in time. So I'm, I'm looking at between March and September, October timeframe, probably up to four hours a month. That would be my best guess right now, with maybe an in-person meeting at the annual conference in Nashville.

John Brucato (17:20.177)
Wow, this sounds really promising, really exciting. You know, I think it's a good.

a good opportunity for you coming into this role to facilitate the future of this organization and what better way to do it than to solicit the feedback of members that are a part of the organization and you know they may have feedback for you that you probably didn't even realize is a need out there because you said earlier every state is very different so yeah I hope we can get a good cross section of our membership and I'm sure that will be a great task force. So

In your next 100 days, as you had mentioned, it sounds like you have a lot on your plate. What do you see your role being as kind of the liaison between state executive directors? I mean, do you see yourself holding recurring meetings? Are you gonna go out and visit? I mean, how do you establish and build those relationships with each individual state?

Jim Rowan (18:16.398)
A little bit of every way. So right out of the gate, I will be holding one-to-one meetings throughout all of my partnership groups. I'm doing one-to-one meetings with my board this week. I'll be doing one-to-one meetings with my staff. I've requested one-to-one meetings with all the affiliate executive directors, either as a group or individually. Same thing with the past presidents. I'll be meeting with our ASBO corporate partners.

John Brucato (18:19.018)
Yeah.

Jim Rowan (18:43.67)
because obviously there are stakeholders that need to see value in ASBO International. So beyond that, I'll be collecting a lot of feedback. I plan to present the board with a 90 to 100 day report, probably in the April timeframe that will basically be a summary of my findings of what I've heard. And then of course, we'll be finalizing our strategic plan at the June board meeting, and hopefully be able to roll that out at the summer meeting with the Affiliate Execs Group. But I will be attending

John Brucato (19:01.951)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Rowan (19:13.584)
as many of the conferences as I can. Our executive directors groups meet several times throughout the year. The third week of January, I'll be in Scottsdale, Arizona meeting with the Western affiliates. I know there's an Eastern group, a Midwest group, a large affiliate group, then all the execs get together in the summer. So I feel that my role is to be the liaison between ASBO and the states and to be able to...

facilitate that two-way conversation so that we make sure that we are truly partners in serving our members. And I do plan to do some sort of a quarterly update with our ADG groups, as well as our past presidents to keep them in the loop on what's going on. But at the end of the day, my door's open, my phone's open to listen, to learn, and to pivot.

John Brucato (19:53.619)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Rowan (20:06.342)
I don't know everything right now, but collectively, as we move forward over the next five years, I'm going to learn a lot in the process and Aswin International just needs to be in a position to pivot and respond and be there for our members.

John Brucato (20:22.309)
And speaking of being there for our members, I mean, International's in the name, but we do focus a lot in the United States and North America. Talk to me a little bit about the development internationally with this organization.

Jim Rowan (20:35.434)
Yeah, that's a good question. So, you know, back in my early days on the board, or as a member, we used to be the association of school business officials.

it was US and Canada. And then we transitioned to international. And there was a time that we had a significant presence in our South America, our South Africa, our United Kingdom, our Australia, and our Canadian folks. We've seen that membership drop. And I understand that because right now, if you look at the portfolio programs and services that we offer, there's not a whole lot of value there for our international members.

to address what does international mean. I look at the future, I think this Vision 35 committee will also probably take up that whole question. But if we're gonna be international, then we need to create some programs and services to meet the needs of our international partners.

We can't just have international in the name and not do anything about that. So I know our Canadian folks to the north, I think there's some real opportunities for ASBO to maybe go up to Canada and provide some maybe leadership development or training just for the Canadian members. If the U.S. members want to attend, great, but everything we do right now seems to be on U.S. soil. So we need to be able to provide opportunities to create value for our international partners as well.

John Brucato (21:49.682)
Right.

John Brucato (21:55.549)
So do you see yourself creating relationships on the Amalfi Coast or Fiji? And... D-

Jim Rowan (22:00.678)
No, no, you know, one of the challenges that we have in Ohio as well, and I think a lot of states have the same problem is who is your audience, you know, define the SBO. And I know in Ohio, we are very strong in the CFO, somewhat strong in our business ops, and we're starting to see a lot more in the support staff. But we don't do a very good job of supporting food nutrition and transportation.

John Brucato (22:29.843)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Rowan (22:30.326)
I believe ASBO has to be everything to everyone. If you're going to be a member, how do we serve you? We need to figure out a way to do that. I don't know what that looks like right now. It may be just simply providing online training for certain membership groups, but I think understanding who our audience is and then trying to create value for each member is gonna be essential.

John Brucato (22:54.101)
Do you worry about maybe trying to cast too wide of a net and doing too much and not doing anything very, very well? Or do you think if you have maybe the adequate staff and vision, you'd be able to accomplish both?

Jim Rowan (23:07.038)
I think right now we probably do not have the bandwidth to be truly international. And that's why I think we need to redefine what does international mean. And maybe that changes over time. Maybe right now it's just, you know, in this new virtual world, providing opportunities through virtual learning or virtual sharing of best practices or white papers and things like that. But maybe over time, as our position changes and we can...

John Brucato (23:19.496)
Yeah.

Jim Rowan (23:36.782)
seek more members in other parts of the world. If there's a need, then maybe we can fill that gap. But right now to look at expanding membership beyond what we currently offer or who we currently serve is probably something I'm not focused on. I'm focused on meeting the needs of our current members and making sure that they're taken care of.

John Brucato (23:44.338)
Yeah.

John Brucato (24:01.225)
It's great and I want to go back to a point you just made too about expanding opportunities for child nutrition and transportation, maybe even facilities. I know at least in New York where I'm stationed there's state associations of facilities and child nutrition and transportation organizations. Do you see yourself kind of making inroads with those organizations to kind of maybe merge and offer more of those?

supplemental offerings, kind of like you're talking about with states that may not have the resources, but maybe just doing that for a different segment of school districts.

Jim Rowan (24:36.298)
Yeah, I think we would be very open to partnering with those sister associations to deliver programs and services or maybe joint professional development or joint conferences. I don't think there's any.

interest right now in trying to take over an association that's already out there providing services. I believe our role should be to either complement or to fill a gap. If there's an affiliate out there that is not getting what they need in the area of transportation and food service, is that something we could do to help them or partner with an association to deliver that? Advocacy at the national level touches upon transportation, food service. That's a role

provide information out to our affiliates and our members on those advocacy efforts. Maybe online professional development, providing certain kinds of training for those affiliates that don't have those associations in their states. That's what this listening tour is going to allow me to do is to really find out what the need is in each of our states and then build a program to service them.

John Brucato (25:39.709)
Great. And if someone's interested in maybe being one of those voices that you can listen to, what's the best way to kind of get in touch with you and maybe schedule a meeting if that's something you're up for?

Jim Rowan (25:50.314)
Yeah, so I think the best way to reach me would be either through email. My email is jroann at asbointl.org.

I wanna hear from as many people as I can. Like I said, we don't have all the answers here. I hope to be able to take what I've learned over 30 years and make a difference. My whole goal in life is to make a difference in the people I serve. And I think ASBO's got a great team and I'm looking forward to working with this team and creating the value that our members want.

John Brucato (26:29.053)
That's great. So it sounds like you're going to be pulled in many different directions for some time now. But when you think of all that you would like to accomplish, whether it be with listening to your membership or future proofing the organization, in the second day on the job, what are you most excited about just kind of getting started here?

Jim Rowan (26:54.946)
So the thing I'm most excited about is to really engage my staff, my board, our members, our affiliates, and really spending time listening to what it is that ASBO International needs to do. The one thing that I've heard loud and clear is there seems to be a lot of one-way communication. We need to be heard. And I plan to do that for the next 100 days. That's where my priority is.

John Brucato (27:17.375)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Rowan (27:24.96)
needs out there, but I don't want to just go out there and reinvent the wheel. We have some affiliates out there that quite frankly probably don't need ASBO International, but I believe that there is something that we can contribute, whether that's legislative advocacy at the federal level or other types of leadership training or just providing the opportunity to collaborate and grow together. I want to create this partnership with our affiliates. I don't want to compete with them. I want to partner with them to figure out how we can best serve our SBOs.

So that's what my next 100 days is gonna be about, is listening, creating the report, and then working with my team to really deliver some strategies moving forward.

John Brucato (28:04.569)
Jim, that sounds really promising. And, you know, I think I may already know the answer to my next question, but how excited is Siobhan to pass the reins over to you?

Jim Rowan (28:15.006)
She seems pretty pumped. So I've had a lot of meetings with my internal cabinet, Sabrina and Siobhan. I've had a lot of meetings with Angie and Melissa. So today's my first meeting with our leadership team, which are all the directors, our finance, our executive.

John Brucato (28:17.049)
Right?

Jim Rowan (28:39.906)
board, Angie. So I'm really excited to begin this journey and it's gonna start today with me basically sharing what we heard from our members and my presentation on what we need to do over the next five years and hopefully get the board or get my staff on board and figure out ways to deliver to our members.

John Brucato (29:04.381)
Well Jim, I'm really excited for you. It sounds like you have a lot of really great ideas. You have good relationships that you've established over your storied career, and I'm really excited to see what you're able to do in the years coming. So thank you so much for just carving a little bit of time out today for me, especially on day number two. You have a lot going on, I'm sure. So it means a lot for you just to sit down and just have a conversation with me. So Jim, thank you again for coming on, and I look forward to seeing what you do in the future.

Jim Rowan (29:34.166)
John, thanks for having me and I look forward to a follow-up maybe a year from now when we can kind of talk about what went right and what went wrong.

John Brucato (29:41.877)
Oh Jim, I'm bringing you on before a year from now, right? All right. Thank you, my friend.

Jim Rowan (29:46.586)
You got it. Thank you.