"A little history. . ."
I was on the steering committee for the first nine months, along with Vincent Browne, Paul McDonald, Roger Curylo, Jim Gutekunst, and some others.
The initial phase was to see if there was any interest. We went from a group of three, who decided that we thought there would be interest. We then had a meeting with12 NY firms, who also expressed an interest. This then became the dilemma. Do we form a society and become independent or become affiliated with another organization, such as the PSA.
The PSA made a rather detailed presentation to us in which they wanted us to become a division of the PSA. A vote was taken and we voted to be independent.
At this point, the steering committee decided that three or four of us were not sufficient, so we expanded to eight. Most of the steering committee meetings, covering 9 months were held in my offices at Cantor Fitzgerald. I think my firm prepared the best cocktail sandwiches. The meetings were held at night, so, yes, we were a hungry bunch. At times, it was the blind leading the blind, but we formed a working steering committee.
If memory serves me correct, one of the members of the steering committee was involved in and had formed a curling association. Again, if memory serves me correct, we used some of the language from his curling society to formulate the by-laws of the CMCAS.
I must also confess that we spent much time coming up with the "tongue twister" name, Capital Markets Credit Analyst Society.
Well, we finally had a society and it grew to 100 individuals. I must say that we did all the administration work, such as stuffing envelopes, mailings, and calling members who had not sent a response before an event. Usually, one week before an event, we had dismal responses, so we split up the society. Each of us would have a list of ten members to call to see if they were attending an event.
It was thrilling to end up with a cash balance that was actually positive.
One of my responsibilities was to make sure we had proper insurance coverage at the events. It was fun negotiating with our insurance broker to get the best rates."
Stewart Harris, Cantor Fitzgerald
Mr. Harris was tragically lost on September 11th, 2001 |
