GRATITUDE ON PARADE
#gratitudeonparade

I got off track with these tributes in large part because of the amount of planning work I was doing including work with or for APA, including the APA Division – Hazard Mitigation/Disaster Recovery Planning Division.

One person who would have approved is someone who passed away on February 22, which unfortunately means I did not write this soon enough for him to enjoy his own tribute. I learned of Frank So’s untimely death just recently. I was able to obtain a photo from APA just today.

Frank spent many years as either the deputy director or the executive director of the American Planning Association before retiring in 2001, in large part because of his wife’s declining health at that time. Frank was the kind of person who put first things first, and his wife came first.

Frank also put people first in his career. I had numerous conversations with him during my time at APA. In one of those, he was questioning another organization’s move to another city and asked, “Do they really think their assets are in the physical facilities instead of their people?” Frank was always encouraging the best in the people who worked for him and knew that the only real asset APA had was its staff.

My most memorable conversation involved a turning point in my career. I was curious about the process by which he was choosing a new research director, but I was at that point in the Publications Department. As we talked, he must have sensed something in my questions; he was brilliant at that. “Are you thinking about leaving?” he asked. Stunned, I confessed that it did seem time for me to do something new. Reluctant to see me leave APA, he arranged my transfer to a new senior research associate position in the Research Department even before hiring his new research director. To Frank, retaining me was more important than waiting for that process to take its course. Frank was like that–people came first. Always.

Photo courtesy APA.

Posted on Facebook 3/20/2019