[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 182 (Thursday, November 14, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1447-E1448]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 NEW HOME, NEW BYLAWS, SAME MISSION: WPAOG HISTORY PART IV (1996-2019) 
                               SECTION A

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JOHN SHIMKUS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 14, 2019

  Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to include in the Record 
Section A of the fourth and final installment of an article by Keith J. 
Hamel honoring the 150th Anniversary of the West Point Association of 
Graduates:

       ``When the Association of Graduates of the U.S. Military 
     Academy moved into the Herbert Alumni Center in the winter of 
     1995, it was primed to capitalize on its past and, in the 
     process, make new history as well. The AOG began on May 22, 
     1869, when a group of graduates, upon a suggestion from 
     Robert Anderson, Class of 1825, held its first organizational 
     meeting in the office of Dr. Horace Webster, Class of 1818. 
     Out of this meeting came the Association's mission: ``. . . 
     to cherish the memories of our Alma Mater, and to promote the 
     social intercourse and fraternal fellowship of its 
     graduates.'' Ever since then, the AOG mission has been about 
     serving both West Point (``Alma Mater'') and the Long Gray 
     Line (``its graduates'').
       In the first stage of its history (1869-1900), covered in 
     our Winter 2019 issue, AOG was instrumental in moving the 
     remains of the ``Father of the Academy,'' Sylvanus Thayer, 
     Class of 1808, to the West Point Cemetery and memorializing 
     him with a statue. Also during this era, one of AOG's 
     founding members, George Cullum, Class of 1833, bequeathed 
     $250,000 to build a memorial hall at West Point and $10,000 
     for ``necessary expenses'' of the Association. In AOG's 
     second stage (1901-45), outlined in our Spring 2019 issue, 
     AOG raised money to purchase the Sanctuary Window in the 
     newly built Cadet Chapel and introduced initiatives such as 
     ``Alumni Day'' (first held on June 11, 1923) and ASSEMBLY 
     magazine (which debuted in April 1942). The modern AOG (see 
     the Summer 2019 issue) began to take shape in the late 1940s 
     with the establishment of the West Point Alumni Foundation 
     and the granting of tax-exempt status by the IRS. Thanks to 
     these developments in AOG's third era (1946-95), fundraising 
     for both the West Point Superintendent's Fund and AOG's 
     annual appeal steadily grew, and in 1972, Major General 
     William Knowlton '43JAN, the 49th Superintendent, removed the 
     AOG active duty officer from the Office of Assistant to the 
     Superintendent, freeing the Association to solicit money for 
     the Academy and to establish new services for graduates. To 
     meet these dual objectives, AOG created both a Directorate of 
     Development (fundraising) and a Directorate of Alumni Affairs 
     (fraternal fellowship) in the 1970s and 1980s, setting up the 
     themes that dominate the present era of its 150-year history.


                  1997-2002: The Bicentennial Campaign

       In 1996, after AOG had moved into Herbert Alumni Center, 
     Edward ``Shy'' Meyer '51, Chairman of the Association, noted 
     that it was time for the Association to refocus its 
     fundraising efforts. ``The bulk of money has gone into the 
     Alumni Center and alumni type things rather than the 
     Superintendent's projects,'' Meyer said, according to the 
     minutes of the October 1996 Board of Trustees meeting. ``With 
     2002 coming up for a target, we have a responsibility as 
     alumni to do something for the Academy in the way of a 
     gift.'' In June 1990, AOG's Long Range Planning Committee had 
     agreed to raise $100 million in 10 years for USMA, based on a 
     long-range analysis of Academy needs through 2002. However, 
     debate over whether to run an Army Athletics Center Campaign 
     or a Cadet Leadership Opportunities Campaign in conjunction 
     with the Academy's Bicentennial in 2002 slowed efforts to get 
     the Bicentennial Campaign fully underway. All that changed in 
     1996. Now with focus provided by Meyer and the West Point 
     Fund Committee, chaired by Jack Hammack '49, and in 
     partnership with Lieutenant General Dan Christman '65, USMA's 
     55th Superintendent, AOG's fundraising moved into high gear, 
     thanks in large part to lessons learned in the campaign to 
     raise funds for Herbert Alumni Center. The Bicentennial 
     Campaign kicked off with a goal to raise $150 million for 
     West Point between 1997 and 2002.
       In the six years preceding the Bicentennial Campaign, the 
     average AOG annual collection was $9.4 million, from fewer 
     than 14,000 donors annually, but during the campaign, those 
     numbers jumped to $28.8 million and 21,000 donors per year. 
     But even more than raising more money and growing the donor 
     pool, the Bicentennial Campaign provided the vehicle to aid 
     AOG's burgeoning maturity. It made it necessary for the 
     Association to grow and professionalize, developing new 
     office systems where none had existed, establishing gift 
     acceptance and donor recognition policies and procedures, and 
     educating graduates to overcome general objections of some 
     alumni toward fundraising. It also transformed the physical, 
     academic, and extracurricular landscape of West Point, 
     because the result of the campaign was not just ``something 
     for the Academy in the way of a gift,'' but a collection of 
     many significant and lasting gifts.
       ``The response to the Bicentennial Campaign was 
     overwhelming,'' said Tom Dyer '67, who was Chairman of the 
     West Point Fund during most of the Bicentennial Campaign, and 
     who took over as AOG Chairman in January 2002. When the 
     campaign closed on December 31, 2002, AOG had raised $218.6 
     million for West Point, nearly $70 million more than its 
     initial goal. What's more, nearly half of all West Point 
     graduates had given at least one gift. ``Never in our wildest 
     dreams did we think we would finish having raised nearly $220 
     million!'' said Dyer, addressing the success of the 
     Bicentennial Campaign in his Chairman's Letter in the March/
     April 2003 issue of ASSEMBLY ``What a great tribute to [all 
     graduates] and dear friends who recognized how much the 
     `margin of excellence' enriches the cadets' experience.''


                         Expanding AOG Services

       While AOG's Development team was busy raising funds for the 
     Bicentennial Campaign, the AOG Alumni Support team was 
     expanding services to graduates across a broad spectrum of 
     programs. In fact, according to one Chairman and CEO Annual 
     Report of this era, ``the most rapidly expanding activity 
     managed by the Association of Graduates is its Alumni Support 
     Program.''
       In November 1996, the team hosted the first AOG Minority 
     Alumni Conference. A year prior, the Association established 
     the Minority Outreach Committee with the mission to enhance 
     the participation of minority members in AOG programs and 
     activities. More than 120 graduates and friends of West Point 
     attended the first conference, raising and discussing issues 
     of major concern to minority graduates. A second conference 
     was held in April 1998. Attended by 107 participants, the 
     objective of the conference was to translate those issues 
     identified in 1996 into action plans to achieve specific 
     objectives related to minority cadet recruiting, the 
     experience of minority cadets at the Academy, AOG support of 
     minority graduates, and fundraising for minority-related 
     projects.

[[Page E1448]]

       Another new initiative that emerged during this time was 
     the 50-Year Affiliation Program. In 1999, the Class of 1949 
     asked the Superintendent if it could present second 
     lieutenant bars, inscribed with ``49-99,'' to the graduates 
     of the Class of 1999. The Superintendent agreed, and four 
     members of the Class of 1949 greeted each cadet as he or she 
     left the dais, diploma in hand, and presented the bars. 
     Called a ``friend raising'' program by the Alumni Support 
     team, the 50-year Affiliation Program later expanded to 
     include a class flag presented to the yearling class as it 
     completed summer training at Camp Buckner and a class coin 
     presented to the cow class upon their taking the affirmation 
     oath. Today, the 50-Year Affiliation Program features eight 
     formal events and a handful of unofficial events at which 
     cadets ``Grip Hands'' with those who preceded them a half-
     century earlier, including R-Day, A-Day, Plebe Class Crest 
     Unveiling, Yearling CFT Class Flag Presentation, Cow 
     Affirmation, Ring Weekend, Branch Night and Graduation.
       Finally, in November 2000, AOG inaugurated the Class Ring 
     Memorial Program. Proposed by Ron Turner '58 in the May/June 
     1999 edition of ASSEMBLY, the ``Ring Melt,'' as it is more 
     popularly known, has today become one of AOG's most revered 
     traditions. As described by Turner, the program involves 
     ``graduates bequeathing (or graduates' descendants donating) 
     West Point class rings for the specific purpose of 
     incorporating the gold into the class rings of future 
     graduates.'' Demonstrating that he had a long-term 
     ``tradition'' in mind when he proposed his idea, Turner also 
     recommended retaining some gold shavings after each melt so 
     that these could be placed in the following year's melt, thus 
     ensuring each year's ``Memorial Gold ingot . . . would 
     contain some of every ring donated.'' To date, a total of 575 
     rings have been donated, spanning the classes of 1896 to 
     1997. All graduates' rings from the classes of 2002-2020 
     contain this ``legacy gold'' from the Class Ring Memorial 
     Program.


                     New Governance, New Operations

       With growth in the number of services it offered and the 
     amount of money it was raising, AOG began considering changes 
     to its organizational structure soon after the conclusion of 
     the Bicentennial Campaign. At the same time, legislation 
     proposed by New York's Attorney General requiring non-profit 
     organizations in the state to follow practices similar to the 
     Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reforms, which Congress enacted 
     during this period, also prompted AOG to consider changes to 
     its governance model. Thus, in 2003, AOG formed the 2020 
     Governance Committee, which presented the results of its 
     yearlong study to the Board of Trustees in January 2005.
       According to the Governance Committee's findings, the AOG 
     board structure of the time was inefficient: ``too many 
     people for effective ideas, too infrequent for full 
     consideration, too little time for all issues, too cumbersome 
     to act as needs demand.'' Furthermore, in the opinion of 
     AOG's legal counsel at the time, the early 2000s governance 
     model left its 54 Trustees exposed to potential personal 
     liability. The Governance Committee's solution was the 
     creation of a smaller Board of Directors (12-16 members), 
     plus Chairman and Vice-Chairman, who would be legally and 
     fiduciarily responsible for the Association, supported by a 
     larger 57-member (ultimately reduced to 54-member) Advisory 
     Council made up of a representative group of class, society, 
     and at-large members. The Governance Committee believed that 
     the Advisory Council would provide AOG with broad graduate 
     representation and participation while also accessing a wide 
     diversity of skills and experiences. They also felt that 
     service on the Advisory Council would be excellent training 
     for future Board of Directors members. An additional change 
     to note, the Governance Committee concluded that role of 
     Chief Executive Officer should not remain with the Chairman 
     but transfer to the AOG President, the person on-site in 
     Herbert Alumni Center, who would have authority over the day-
     to-day affairs of the Association and the management of its 
     staff. After careful consideration and multiple compromises, 
     the modernization and rewrite of AOG's Bylaws was completed 
     and voted on in March 2005, elections were held in the fall 
     of 2005, and, for the first time since the 1920s, a new model 
     of AOG governance took effect on January 1, 2006 under the 
     chairmanship of Ted Stroup '62.
       A year after receiving its new streamlined model of 
     governance, AOG received a new name: the ``West Point 
     Association of Graduates'' (WPAOG). Board of Trustee minutes 
     show that AOG's Strategic Planning Committee had been 
     considering the name change since 1998, as part of a larger 
     effort to change the fundraising, marketing, and business 
     organization efforts of the Association, but it wasn't 
     implemented until WPAOG launched its redesigned website in 
     September 2007. The timing of this coincided with ``AOG 
     Strategic Plan 2010,'' which the Board considered in May 
     2007. One of the considerations under discussion during this 
     meeting was branding, and the Association's new name now 
     incorporated what many consider to be one of the world's 
     premiere brands--West Point.
       The new website was the product of WPAOG's Information 
     Systems Department (ISD), which had been established in 1996 
     to build and maintain AOG's hardware and software 
     infrastructures. ISD also developed and executed the AOG 
     Information Strategic Plan, which leveraged existing 
     technology to enhance the ability to communicate information 
     quickly via electronic means. In 1997, this plan led to a 
     test program that provided classes with a notification of the 
     death of one its members within 24 hours after confirmation 
     by AOG. That same year, AOG purchased software that enabled 
     it to create real-time distribution of news items and 
     articles. This was the beginning of today's Death 
     Notification System (DNS), which each day receives and 
     verifies death notifications and then sends out daily updates 
     to Class and Society leaders (on average 400 per year).
       Given the emphasis on improving communication with graduate 
     members and on increasing awareness of the new WPAOG name 
     change, it wasn't long before the Association created a 
     specific department to address both needs. Effective 
     communication had been a decade-long goal of AOG by 2009, and 
     in August of that year, the Association began to seriously 
     consider establishing an integrated communications team. One 
     of the questions facing WPAOG at the time was what to do with 
     ASSEMBLY magazine. Although beloved by many graduates, by 
     2009, less than 20 percent were subscribing to the magazine, 
     which meant that the majority of graduates were not receiving 
     news from their alma mater. After much discussion and 
     deliberation, WPAOG elected to follow the model of several 
     peer alumni associations and produce a new quarterly magazine 
     that would be mailed out free of charge to all graduates. 
     West Point magazine debuted in January 2011, and in February 
     WPAOG's Publications Directorate became part of the new 
     Department of Communications and Marketing, which was charged 
     with mastering new communications technologies in the 
     internet era, becoming an ongoing source of information for 
     graduates and promoting participation in WPAOG services.
       At the same time, WPAOG's Finance Department continued its 
     management of gift funds and endowments for West Point and 
     the Long Gray Line, aided by expert advice from the 
     Investment Committee. Today, WPAOG manages more than $380 
     million in endowment funds, and the Association has received 
     the highest rankings for transparency and efficient funds 
     management from non-profit watchdogs Guidestar (Platinum) and 
     Charity Navigator (4 stars).
       In the early 2000s, AOG tried an innovative approach to 
     building gift funded brick and mortar projects, which now 
     encompass both new construction and renovation. WPAOG 
     successfully managed the planning, design and construction of 
     the Hoffman Press Box in 2002-03 and proffered the completed 
     project as a gift to the government. The success of this 
     approach led to it becoming the new model for gift-funded 
     construction at West Point, and by 2019 WPAOG had completed 
     over 170 projects, representing more than $250 million 
     donated by members of the Long Gray Line''.

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