Whether speaking at national conferences, testifying or advocating for boating safety legislation or preaching from the podium, Guess is a passionate presenter with a servant’ s heart.
Now, I get to apply that 38 years of operational, managerial, leadership, policy, legislative, and the depth and breadth of experience from active duty, state, federal and nonprofit experience I have to focus and channel it through NASBLA to benefit the association and our members, along with the Coast Guard, our partners, industry, and the boater.
BI: What’ s the biggest challenge you face as CEO of NASBLA? TG: Post Covid, there seems to be a general apathy in society and that affects all of us. This is not focused on NASBLA and the recreational boating safety community, but it seems to be a societal problem in general.
It’ s difficult to get people to volunteer for things and it’ s difficult to get people to see value in anything that they don’ t choose. Covid and the pandemic refocused society and made people shut down, even though it was a boom for boating and paddling in general. Volunteerism declined, the desire to travel to meetings and to participate declined, and the ability to get people to show up for job interviews declined.
So, with the constant revolving door of new people within state agencies, getting some new state members to understand the great value in a national association that represents not only their state’ s interest collectively, but the interest of individual members within a state at the national level, and ultimately the boaters within a state, is difficult. It’ s also tough on the employment front when trying to hire new talent, and it’ s just for nonprofits; it seems to be universal.
BI: What are your major areas of focus? TG: I’ ve focused on understanding NASBLA’ s financial stability and optimizing our staff’ s efforts to best serve our members.
One area of focus has been our role in association management. While NASBLA is open to supporting other organizations when appropriate, association management is not a core part of our mission. Providing such services requires significant resources, including additional staff and carefully crafted contracts to protect our interests.
Another key area is standardization of regulations between states and Code of Federal Regulation. This is no small undertaking when working with a national scale program; it takes time, effort, and meetings.
Additionally, we are tasked with developing public policy for recreational boating safety and producing model acts for states and others to use. We also represent the states as part of the Angling and Boating Alliance( ABA), including working on reauthorization of the Sport Fish Restoration and Boating Trust Fund( SFRBTF) bill every five years. I recently went to D. C. to meet with a contingent of ABA members to submit the final draft of the bill language.
I’ ve also been working with our Executive Board on developing our strategic plan to help carry us through the next five years.
www. boatingindustry. com july / august 2025
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