Well I Am Tickled to Death That This Many of You Did Just That. You Stepped Forward And

Welcoming

Good Morning.

I am really glad to see you here this morning. Last August at the Grove Park Inn, I said I wanted NCHEA to embrace this CHFM exam. Take it on – head on – as a group - to cheer and coach each other to success.

Well I am tickled to death that this many of you did just that. You stepped forward and got in the game. You remind me of Larry Walters. Let me tell you the story about Larry. Now this is a true story. I will put the links to his story on the website next week.
Larry was a truck driver who lived in California. He would drive his truck all week and come home on weekends and sit in his favorite lawn chair in the backyard. He would enjoy some “refreshments” and sit and think. He thought about the grass, the wall that divided his yard from the neighbors, but he mostly thought about the sky. Larry wanted to be a pilot but had been turned down for physical reason. One day after Larry had been sitting and think, he had an idea. If he could float up over the fence and over the trees he could see his neighbors yard and drift over the tops of the houses. After several more beers, this started to sound like a good idea. Larry, being a man of action, went down to the local Army Surplus story and bought 45 weather balloons and a big bottle of helium. He carefully filled the balloons with helium and tied all 45 balloons to his lawn chair. After packing a sandwich and some more beer, he asked his friends to cut the tie-down expecting to drift upward and meander over the rooftops.

Well once the line was cut…..Larry did not drift….he catapulted or you could say he rocketed straight up. He quickly cleared 100 ft…then 500. He did not stop there. He continued is rapid ascend past 1000, 5000 finally he made it to 16,000 feet. This is 3 miles in the air. After some time, Larry got up enough nerve to use his BB-gun that he brought with him to shoot out some of the balloons. Larry had brought the gun because it was part of his careful planning.

While Larry was getting up the nerve to shoot out some of the balloons while 3 miles in the air….frozen...and fighting to breath…a commercial jet flew by him. Can you image the conversation between the plane and the tower. “This is TWA flight 435 calling the tower”…”Go ahead 435”…”You will not believe this, I just passed a man sitting in a lawn chair”…”Repeat 435 – have you been drinking again”.

Larry did shoot some of the balloons and managed to safely drift back down towards earth. The police and news media quickly surrounded him once he was on the ground. The reports asked, “Larry, why would you do something like this?” Larry profoundly answered, “A man can not just sit there”.

You remind me of Larry, not for doing something crazy, but because you could not just sit there either. Many of you could not just sit there after I issued the challenge of this exam. You decided to step out…take a chance…do something outside your comfort zone. I am proud of you. There is another group here that has told me that you wanted to take the exam but did not have the required experience at this time. I am so glad you came today. You will learn a tremendous amount of information that you can take back to your facility and put to immediate use. There is also a third group here. This group is our supporters. The architects, engineers and vendors that support our organization as associate members, you support us as friends and you support us in our jobs. We thank you for coming.

Well, let’s fast forward the tape several weeks. Just imagine that you are now sitting in Robert Guerry’s office. Robert’s desk is perfectly clean except for his feet that are propped up on the corner. All of a sudden the phone rings. It is Maribeth Casey, the lady who works for AHA and is in charge of this exam. She says, “Robert, what is going on down there? You will not believe this…but all 37 people who took that test the other day passed. This is unheard of. This has never happened before. What kind of people do you have in NC? What is going on, Robert? What is going on?”
I think Robert will smile as he listens and then say, “Maribeth, I can tell you what is going on…..it is the North Carolina Healthcare Engineers Association. That is what is going on.”