The last couple of weeks have been quite busy. My many activities have included work as president of our small homeowners association, a position I held for a little over a year. Last night at our annual meeting I stepped down as president and, following the tradition of the association, took the role of vice president.

It was a hectic year for the association, and I was ready to pass the presidency to someone else. While we have only nine units, on August 24 of last year we had a nasty storm that rained down baseball-sized hail. (Some parts of Northfield had softball-sized hail.) You can see the proof in the pictures above.

The result was over $80,000 dollars worth of damage. As president I was responsible for managing the repairs. All roofs and gutters were replaced, and there was much repair work done on windows, siding, trim, doors, and more. We were fortunate that we had the able help of American Building Contractors, Inc., a Burnsville, Minnesota, company that specializes in storm damage repair. Their representative, Josh Moe, did a great job handling our claims and interacting with the insurance company.

It was bad luck to get stuck with this situation as president, but I got feedback that I did a good job managing the repairs. There are two accomplishments as president that I’m most proud of: 1.) improvements to gutters and drainage, which has helped solve some water problems in our courtyards, and 2.) improvements in attic insulation and ventilation. We discovered the need for the latter during our roof repairs; the result should be energy savings and reduced carbon emissions for a long time into the future.

You can see that I have a practical side. It’s something that the men in my family share, this appreciation of maintenance and upkeep. And it’s no wonder that I was tapped to be president.

I can only imagine what it must be like to be president of a large association. No, I wouldn’t want that job, thank you very much.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 3:20 pm and is filed under Autobiography, Minnesota, Northfield.