Capital Commentary
by Chris Needels, USPA Executive Director

Around the time most members receive this issue of Parachutist, the USPA Headquarters will exist in packing boxes. We’re moving to our new offices in Fredericksburg, Virginia. We will be closed April 27-28 while the moving company does its thing. We’ll set up over the weekend and be ready to open the new doors on May 1.

While we make this speedy transition, members can continue to use the old address and phone numbers, which forward automatically to the new. Or feel free to use the new information after opening day. We’ll all get used to it in short order.

While it will be a little sad to leave our Alexandria offices after 24 years, we won’t miss the Washington, D.C., traffic or high cost of doing business. We certainly appreciate the real estate savvy of former executive director Bill Ottley, who found the Alexandria office condos as other small associations sought relief from exorbitant commercial leases near the White House and federal office buildings. The construction of the new and larger headquarters facility in Fredericksburg was almost entirely covered by the sale of the old. And as planned from the outset, we will still be near enough to the Capitol building and FAA Headquarters to affect our government relations programs.

The new building was designed by skydivers with skydivers in mind. It is a modern facility with a look of aviation, with just enough metal and blue to suggest aircraft and skies. Within is a new Member Service Center, where a largely new staff will answer correspondence, process membership applications, prepare awards, take USPA Shop orders and assist members in any way possible. Along the wall will be a gentle reminder, “It’s all about the member!”

There won’t be the annoying recorded phone menu when a member calls. There will be a live voice ready to assist or to forward to a specialist if needed. There will also be a continuing shift from phone calls to e-mails, which now seems to be the preferred way for members to reach USPA. In anticipation of such a switch, USPA is using “voice-over internet” (VOIP) technology, meaning that there are no longer any phone lines coming into headquarters. The telephone and e-mail all come over the internet from our service provider. We saved a couple of plain old telephone service (POTS) lines just in case the net goes down.

With the USPA Headquarters’ relocation, we see an opportunity to revitalize and redefine the way we do business. Some changes will be noticeable immediately. Others will be noticed in the coming months, such as a new logo to supplement the venerable old USPA Wings. And all will be designed to better represent and serve members. The changes will also be visible to those outside the skydiving community with whom we must interact—government agencies, the media and the non-skydiving public, which really doesn’t quite understand why we jump out of airplanes. Our new facility and new ways of doing business will display a new look of professionalism.

As with any change, there is risk, but we hope we have minimized the possibility. Even with a comprehensive plan from the outside, we know that with new infrastructure, people and technology, some fine-tuning will be needed. And this is where members can really help. We will need feedback as we adjust to our new environment, so please e-mail us if you see something that can be done better. In the meantime, please excuse our dust, and do stop by once the dust has settled.

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