Association Forum’s Longest
Serving Member Retires
A lot happened in 1969. The United States
landed on the moon. John Lennon married Yoko Ono. More than 400,000 people
attended Woodstock. And 24-year-old
John Venator joined the Association
Forum of Chicagoland, known then as the
Chicago Society of Association Executives.
The Association Forum’s longest serving
current CEO member, Venator, now 65,
will retire on Aug. 31 after more than 40
years of association management, most
recently with Comp TIA, an international
association of IT professionals based
in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill. President and
CEO of Comp TIA for 20 years, from 1989
until 2008, he’s spent the last two years
as president and CEO of the Comp TIA
Educational Foundation, which he helped
establish in 1998.
“When I joined Comp TIA, the budget
was just around $1 million, we had several hundred members and only six staff,”
Venator says. “We now have 20,000 members, 16 offices worldwide, a $50 million
budget and about the same amount in
reserves. It’s been a great experience and
I’m glad that on my watch the association
had such a good growth spurt.”
“During the course of
my career ... I’ve learned
that a leader isn’t always
the star ... You have to
be collaborative.”
The association isn’t the only thing that
had a growth spurt on Venator’s watch.
His career did, too. A marketing major,
Venator moved to Chicago after college
and took a sales and marketing job with
a now defunct company called Kemper
Insurance. Then, almost by accident, he
was hired for his first association job.
“A friend of a friend at a cocktail party
told me, ‘I think I know of a job that would
be just perfect for you,’” Venator recalls.
“I sort of humored him and reluctantly
agreed to go to an interview. But when I
got there, it wasn’t an interview; they had
so pre-sold me for the job that I’d already
gotten it.”
The job was as director of membership
services for the Chicago Medical Society,
where Venator worked for several years
under the direction of Dr. George Lull.
“Dr. Lull was a good motivator and a great
mentor,” Venator says. “It was Dr. Lull who
encouraged me to join what is now the
Forum. He said, ‘You’re doing some great
things here, but I bet you can do some
really innovative things by learning from
some of your peers what they’re doing.”
Venator joined not only the Association
Forum, but also ASAE. Then, several years
later — after a stint at the Mental Health
Association of Greater Chicago — he went
from member to volunteer leader at the
urging of Carl Halber, his new employer
at the American Dental Hygienists Asso-
ciation, where he was assistant executive
director.
To learn more about John Venator’s new home, Casa
de los Venados, visit
www.casadelosvenados.com.
