Ruth Thaler-Carter is a freelance writer and editor based in Rochester, New York who writes often for Facilities Manager. She can be reached at Rthalerc@aol.com.

APPA's new president takes the helm at a challenging time for higher education and the facilities management profession in general, and the association in particular. Thanks to his solid work experience and 20 years of dedicated APPA service, though, Philip L. Cox is ready to take on the challenges and provide the strong leadership needed by the association and its member campuses in these difficult times.

Outside Angles
Phil Cox, 55, comes to the association's top leadership position with a solid background in several aspects of the facilities management profession, from both within and outside higher education. Currently serving as director of facilities management for Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Cox joined the university in 1982 after seven years as city engineer for Ithaca and several years as an engineer with the Corps of Engineers in Detroit, Michigan, as an Army officer and a civilian. He earned his A.A.S., B.S., and M.S. degrees in civil engineering from Broome Technical Community College, Michigan Tech, and Wayne State University, respectively, and is a registered professional engineer. Cox's department has about 400 employees. The Ithaca campus-Cornell's main campus-has about 750 acres, of which 450 acres are maintained landscaping; there are about 13.5 million square feet of buildings. The 2001 enrollment included 19,269 students at the Ithaca campus and 665 at the Medical College in New York City.

Hooked on APPA
Cox had been involved in various civic and professional organizations before joining the facilities management staff at Cornell and APPA, but APPA became his "association of choice" almost immediately. He first got "hooked on APPA" when he attended the Institute for Facilities Management in the summer of 1983 and realized that "this was the professional association for me." His involvement in APPA has been a long series of positive experiences ever since.

"It was apparent to me that my past association affiliations, while valuable to me as an engineer, were not going to meet my professional development needs in managing facilities in higher education," Cox recalled. "The special circumstances that surround facilities management in an academic environment require unique tools to get the job done effectively, and APPA is the association most closely allied to where I am in higher education, so it's the best fit."

Cox was elected to the ERAPPA Board of Directors and served in the various offices of the region, eventually serving as ERAPPA president in 1993-94. He then served two years on the APPA Board of Directors as an Eastern Region representative and was elected by the other senior representatives to serve on the Executive Committee. He served three years on the Information and Research Committee and as an Upward Bound mentor, member of the Electronic Information Users Group, New York State contact member, NYAPPA Education Committee, first chairman of ERAPPA's education committee, presenter at ERAPPA annual meetings, and as APPA Secretary-Treasurer, which also entails serving on the Executive Committee and chairing the Membership and Bylaws committees.

"My APPA membership has been a tremendous asset to my career over the past nearly 20 years," Cox said. "APPA has been a key source for my professional development through a myriad of training programs and contemporary publications. Perhaps even more valuable have been the things I have learned through informal networking. It never ceases to amaze me how much one can learn by simply asking others who are in the same profession and facing similar challenges."

For Cox, being so involved in a membership association has provided many benefits, both within APPA and on the job. In fact, he says, the experience of being active in APPA has taught him a lot about leadership in general and helped groom him for his on-campus responsibilities, while overseeing people and projects on campus has helped him be a better association leader. "Association leadership-working primarily with volunteers-is different from leading a facilities organization and working with employees and colleagues on campus, but the principles are the same," he explained. "It's all about working with people. My role in APPA leadership has been exciting and rewarding. The fun part of my APPA experience has been trying out new leadership tools and techniques that I was learning about back on campus, in a new setting among APPA colleagues. Conversely, I have enjoyed applying leadership principles that I've learned from APPA to my position at Cornell. It seems to me that these two leadership opportunities, running in parallel, provided a great complement to each other and have broadened my experience base as a leader."

His proudest achievement as an APPA board member and leader is easy for Cox to identify: "establishing greater linkages between the regions and the APPA board and staff through a staff liaison appointed to each region." Cox also is quite proud of his role in revitalizing the Membership Committee as APPA Secretary-Treasurer, with the result of increasing membership numbers in all categories.

Family Comes First
One of the most important parts of Cox's life is his family. "My wife Marsha and I are proud parents of three great kids, all of whom are grown and out of the nest," he said. "We are thrilled with our role as grandparents and especially thankful that both of our grandsons live nearby in Ithaca."

In fact, APPA involvement has been somewhat of a family affair for Cox. One of the things he relishes most about his long APPA experience is that Marsha has been there alongside him at many of the regional and international meetings, as well as at many committee, Board, and executive committee meetings. "It has meant a lot that she could travel with me and be a partner involved in sharing my rich APPA experiences," he said.

Professional Challenges
To Phil Cox, the facilities management profession within higher education has a wide range of challenges to face, starting with the familiar issue of economics and budgets. "

'Doing more with less' is a phrase all too well-known among facilities professionals, particularly over the past few years," he said. "However, with the recent difficulties in our economy, the crunch on finances for education is especially acute, so it is becoming more problematic than ever for institutions to adequately fund their facilities needs. Campuses continue to expand and many of the new facilities coming online are high-tech buildings with intense operating and maintenance requirements. Coupled with these sorts of capital demands on already-strained institutional budgets are the looming needs for major renovations-huge portions of many campuses that were constructed right after World War II now are worn out or obsolete, and require major capital renewal. Piled on top of all these pressures are the ever-increasing demands on our resources that result from new occupational health and environmental regulations."

It's a daunting vista, but there are resources available, and APPA is one of them, according to Cox. "One of the most effective ways that facilities professionals can cope with the challenging financial constraints they are facing is to learn from one another," he said. "By using the tremendous potential represented by the collective knowledge and experience of the APPA membership, members need not start at square one and solve problems alone. Rather, by tapping into the APPA network, facilities professionals can learn about what has worked for other schools facing similar financial problems. My experience has been that APPA members freely share their knowledge and advice. Likewise, many of the APPA educational and publication offerings speak directly to exactly the sort of issues that member schools face."

Technology also is a key issue for many APPA member schools, according to Cox. "There is kind of a basic requirement that you must be wired these days; so much of our business is conducted over the Internet now," he said. "Technology is also having profound effects on how teaching is being done. It affects how we're doing our jobs in terms of how classrooms have to be designed and set up." To cope with these aspects of the job, Cox said he relies a great deal on APPA programs and training, such as the 2001 Emergent Building Technologies Conference-services that he plans to support throughout his term as president.

Despite the challenges, there also is some good news for facilities management at institutions of higher education. "The good news is that higher education continues to expand," said Cox. "As an example, I recently attended a presentation at which Dr. Michelle Gauthier of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, forecasted a 20 to 30 percent growth in enrollment in Canadian higher education by 2011. To me, it appears that higher education facilities management will continue as a thriving profession."

Challenges for APPA
As he takes on the presidency of the association, Cox sees APPA's greatest challenge as mirroring the concerns of its members and "revolving around the hard economic times we are experiencing. We are concerned about our revenue stream, which depends so heavily on dues and attendance at educational programs," he explained. "We also are concerned about how to deliver services most effectively to our members, to maximize the value they receive for their scarce training and development resources. As we become more global, we also need to determine how to tailor our service delivery to meet the needs of international members, which might vary from those of members in North America."

Cox expects economic issues to be a key concern for schools and the association in coming year. "I haven't much evidence of economic recovery," he said. In fact, "we are seeing many signs of economic belt-tightening among our member institutions. APPA and many of our peer associations are bracing for tough times-meeting and program attendance is expected to be off by about 20 percent in the coming academic year and there has been some speculation among the Council of Higher Education Management Associations (CHEMA) members that the worst may be yet to come, since academia often sees a lag in reactions to economic movement."

In defining his goals as APPA President, Cox accepts financial concerns as a reality and sees diversity as his personal issue. "As the theme for his 2001-02 APPA Presidency, Gary Reynolds chose 'Leadership is Personal'; my hope is to springboard from that theme, recognizing that diversity choices are personal responsibilities," he said. "As leaders, we have the additional responsibility of setting the example for how everyone in our organization should support a more diverse and inclusive workplace and society in general. We must lead the effort toward greater diversity by example. It is up to the APPA leadership to make personal choices that foster greater diversity and inclusiveness in our association. I hope to raise awareness and inclusion."

APPA's vision is to become a "global partner in learning," noted Cox, and that perspective has great appeal for him as well. "The global part of the vision is coming true in a number of ways, such as our Australasian membership and our strategic alliance with the Association of University Directors of Estates (AUDE) in the United Kingdom. APPA is in the process of forming a relationship with higher education facilities professionals from several southern African countries and from Mexico. Another U.K. association and a German association have expressed interest in forming ties to APPA. For the first time ever, a member from the AAPPA region ran for president-elect in the last election. All these advances toward greater globalization have increased the urgency of determining how we can better connect with our global members and how we will collaborate with other international associations in the future."

These steps have created an opportunity for APPA that works well with his commitment to diversity, according to Cox. "I believe the time is right for our association to take a look at itself and examine the lifeblood of our organization-the membership," he said. "Not only do I hope that our membership base can grow and be strengthened by this growth, I also hope that we can increase our diversity. In the areas where our differences may be limited, I want to remove barriers to inclusion in APPA and in the facilities profession that we serve. As we move to increase the diversity of our membership, I believe we should pay particular attention to gender, race, age and, in the interest of our globalization movement, nationality. By building on our many strengths, I am convinced we can broaden our diversity to more closely reflect the inclusiveness that is so highly valued by our constituent institutions."

Accomplishing this lofty goal may take time, but Cox has a specific approach to start the ball rolling. "Because so many of the APPA services and offerings are guided by a committee structure, I am asking each committee to do what it can to weave diversity issues throughout the entire fabric of our organization," he explained. "I am confident the committee members will come up with ideas around diversity that I might never imagine."

Cox envisions having APPA offer more services in training and education that focus on the value of being diverse; publishing material about the topic; and looking at the criteria of APPA awards of excellence to see where diversity could be recognized and rewarded, which would encourage others to make similar efforts. He also plans to work with historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to encourage more members from those institutions. "There are a lot of little things that collectively could make a big difference," he said. "It also is important to remember that diversity is not only about obvious things like ethnicity and gender; it's also about differences in life experiences, philosophies, employment perspectives, and nationalities.

Individual members have a role to play in this process as well; it is not only APPA leaders who can show the way and make a difference. "Our members can learn more about why diversification is not only the right thing to do from a moral point of view, but that it also makes good business sense," said Cox. "Then, as each of us faces personal choices, we can make the right ones."

In addition to increasing APPA's diversity, enhancing its efforts around globalization, and matching its service delivery to the needs of international members, a priority for Cox during his term as president will be to support the Center for Facilities Research (CFaR). "Established during Gary Reynolds' term as President, CFaR has the potential for discovering all sorts of new knowledge that will support our profession while tapping into the talents of and involving more members in the activities of APPA," Cox said. "I will do all I can to help CFaR get well-established and mature as a valuable APPA asset."

Cox also plans to focus on efforts to carry out the desired outcomes of APPA's strategic plan-competency, credibility, and collaborative relationship-building-in part through building coalitions with peer associations and participating in organizations that share APPA's focus on such outcomes. "One important way in which we pursue these outcomes is through participation in CHEMA," he said. "I had the good fortune to take part in updating CHEMA's strategic plan and to examine the trends, challenges, and opportunities facing all of us in higher education. CHEMA is a perfect example of how professional associations can team up to do more for their constituents than they could ever hope to do alone."

Words of Advice
Thanks to his long-time involvement on the job and his strong commitment to the association, Cox has some good advice for both students and professionals in the field of facilities management for higher education.

Today's students of facilities management are, of course, the future lifeblood of both the profession and its leading association. Now that he has been in the field for more than 20 years and an active APPA member for almost as long, Cox sees the path for students a little differently than he did in the past. "My advice for students in facilities management is about 180 degrees from the one I would have offered as an engineering student many years ago," he said. "Technical skills and experiences are essential to careers; they are the cost of getting into the game. However, what separates the extraordinary from the ordinary are people skills. What will eventually lead toward success in any career is the ability to get along with people and form effective relationships. I would urge today's students to seek all the learning they can about what it takes to work harmoniously with other human beings."

To make the most of their careers, he also would advise facilities-management students to join and be actively involved in campus chapters of APPA, learn as much about current technology as possible, and learn not only to network for their own advancement and advantage, but to give back in the process-to treat networking as a two-way process. Cox has one key nugget of advice for colleagues in educational facilities management, whether a newcomer or an experienced member of the profession: "Get involved in APPA. Whether your role is at the local chapter level, at the regional level, or at the international level, your time and efforts will be well-spent. As with most volunteer efforts, you get out of the organization what you put into it. In fact, I am convinced you will get more from your APPA involvement than you will put into it. You and your institution will enjoy a major net gain from your involvement."

Looking to the Future
The immediate future for Cox involves APPA and his responsibilities at Cornell, and he has not yet decided how his long-term future will look, although he expects to remain active both professionally and in the association for a good while to come. "My crystal ball is a little hazy, so I am not entirely sure of my future," he said. "I would hope to finish out my career at Cornell and I like to think I have several more years of service to offer, but, hey, you never know. After my term as APPA President, I plan to get more involved in local civic volunteering, which I must admit has suffered somewhat in the past few years. Of one thing I am certain, though: As long as I am in higher education, I will remain active in APPA."