Inside the ARRL with CEO David Minster NA2AA

David Minster, NA2AA, has been leading the world’s largest ham radio organization, the ARRL, for nearly 3 years. He brought decades of experience as a Software Engineer, Chief Information Officer and Chief Executive Officer in corporations such as Unilever and David Yurman into the c-suite at the ARRL in Newington. David generously opened up his schedule for our free-wheeling conversation about the culture he encountered when he started his new job, creating an environment filled with possibility (yes rather than no), and the necessity of being responsive to everyone in the hobby regardless of age or interest. David also talks specifically about the recent member survey and the lessons that are being applied to future planning. Watch this episode of W1DED in Maine for a glimpse inside the ARRL and the mind of CEO David Minster.

 

Inside the ARRL .... ..

It might be good if he would stick his head outside of Headquarters once in awhile!

 

Seems like very outside HQ, saw and presented at SeaPac, seen on videos at major conventions alked about travels and extensive zoom calls with many which is more efficient than going into the hot outdoors

 

Though I usually avoid W1DED videos like The Plague - due to both the presenter's mannerisms and over EQ'd/processed audio - but in this case, I wanted to hear Minster in his own words; not what Zed and other critics write or say about him.

I'm 33 minutes into the interview and am rather favorably impressed with what Minster has shared thus far. He seems far from being the ogre many depict him.

 

While I'm not privy to David's full schedule, I know that my interview was delayed due to his aggressive travel/meeting/conference schedule that included the Dayton Hamvention, SEA-PAC (Northwest Ham Convention, and HAM RADIO in Friedrichshafen Germany. I found him very generous with his time.

 

Thank you? I appreciate you holding your nose and watching despite your misgivings! Not much I can do about my mannerisms at this point in my old life, but am happy to continue to work on the audio - I don't pretend to be an expert. It's sure been a work in progress. Minster was an impressive guest to be certain.

"If you really have a story you want to tell and and it's a good story, then you just tell it the best you can and you hope it finds an audience." - Clint Eastwood, Director/actor, The Outlaw Josie Wales

 

One of the factors in my early retirement was the realization that I don't have a great speaking voice, despite getting speech therapy while I was recovering from a stroke in the rehab ward of Hartford Hospital.
No matter what I do I'll never look like the typical ham, though I did appear on one QST cover.

I think that video presentations are the way of the future.

But, while I can quickly scan a book or text on web pages for content, I've never been able to do the same with video.

 

Hey Kevin.

Rest easy knowing I wasn't holding my nose and never have with your videos. And I do appreciate you're not one of those arm flailing screaming meemies types ...

Yep - mannerisms are mannerisms and I'm certain many of my own aren't appreciated in the least. heh.

As far as the audio goes, I'd like very much to hear your speaking voice in person, though I'm willing to wager a Washington (or maybe even high roll a Jefferson) that it differs considerably from the audio on the videos. Often what (a collective) "we" want our voices to sound like in monitor 'phones is not what our voices actually sound like in face to face conversation - and EQ/process to get the sound we want to hear. I was schooled on that back in my early foray into 75 meter AM. That schooling served me well in other areas - vocals in house sound mixing and FM broadcasting.

73, Jeff

 

Thanks, Jeff. I do appreciate the insight. 73

 

I had originally posted a similar comment (on YouTube) but W1DED saw it fit to remove it saying he wanted to keep things "positive" saying he didn't want to take sides. But I notice he left only the positive comments meaning he's already taken a side.

David mentioned that he talked to his director, without naming names. It was me. I handed him that job on a silver platter because without me he would have never gotten this job. Too bad he turned around and did what he did to me(rest of the story is in the main ham radio forums). I had respect for him, but behind the scenes things are not good.

 

Oh, on the outside he is a great speaker... inside the Boardroom, it is a completely different story. Next week is the July meeting. Watch this space.

 

The deleted comment was on his YouTube channel on the video, not here. You don't have access to that.

 

YouTube has a chapters feature where add do timestamps in the description and it indexes the video's segments. I found that feature useful for some of my longer videos and also those I do for clients. It's now using AI to do that automatically for some videos. Hit or miss but sometimes it works pretty good.