President’s Message

There are numerous ways to understand the meaning of “innovation.” Origination, modernization, improvement, invention are all samples. I now have one year under my belt leading this great team at CACM in our continued effort to innovate the ways we provide our service to you in all categories of our membership. Like your jobs serving homeowner associations, it’s not easy finding ways to be original, modernize and improve our service. But, like you, that’s what we do.

So, I’m super happy that our modernized website is now in full operation. It’s been improved with all of the bells and whistles of modernization. But we didn’t stop there. We are in the process of upgrading our Association Management System (our membership database). What does that mean to you? Well, it’s going to be much easier to navigate, review historical credentialing and certification records, and to easily obtain necessary member information and benefits.

As the saying goes, “But wait, there’s more.” Innovation implies modernization of technology, which is not accurate. We are also looking at ways to innovate our certification and credentialing process and requirements. As an example, the Master of Community Association Management (MCAM) is being modified to be more realistic to obtain and at the same time confirming the knowledge level of the applicants.

We are reviewing ways to streamline our courses, such as the financial courses that are in the final stages of being updated. The BAM and Ethics courses have been modernized. Legal courses are being updated to recognize the changes in statutes.

We are also improving our events and how we offer events. We have already to date held numerous localized networking events and knowledge-sharing lunches across California.

We also want to give back to you, the community we service. Our charitable arm, CACMStrong Foundation, is now in full operation. CACMStrong Foundation was developed to help our members and the communities you serve when disaster hits, such as the raging fires in 2018 that left many of our community members personally impacted. I encourage you to visit our new website for more information about CACMStrong Foundation.

Lastly, working in strong cooperation with our industry colleagues, we have been successful at impacting legislation. Legislators are reaching out to us for input, information and guidance on various legislative initiatives. By the time you read this, SB 323 was signed by the governor. However, we did in fact positively impact a negative bill through our lobbying efforts and meetings with the governor’s office and legislators.

We seek ways to continue to be innovative. Have an idea? Please, share it with me.

I look forward to seeing you at our multiple holiday parties around California and at the Law Seminars.

Thomas Freeley, President & CEO