<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi Barbara,<DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>Your history is a good example of what is really effective: the tech on the spot lobbying, communicating, making changes. That is really our front line of attack, and having this forum makes it happen much more and better, as we learn from one another's experiences. </DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>About qualifications for hiring, I think that academia would love to have something concrete to help them. Yes, looking for and trying to hire the local with a good reputation is one avenue. Finding someone you want to hire and writing the job description around that person's qualifications and history is another common one. But that assumes you can actually find such a person (and that person is willing to apply for the job or contract). And what does that local reputation really mean? I have seen a lot of cases where a fast and smooth talker got a big reputation quickly, and was entrusted with work he or she wasn't qualified to do.</DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>Bottom line, nothing we do is the silver bullet. Each step is (we hope) a step in the right direction, with various uses and potentially positive effects. This particular project can be used to promote PTG (and RPT) and raise awareness of piano maintenance issues, by administrators as a tool to find qualified techs, by current techs to try to upgrade their jobs and pay, by all of us to raise and measure our skill levels relatively objectively . . .</DIV><DIV><SPAN class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </SPAN>Is it worth the trouble? I guess time will tell. Airing the concepts involved will be a healthy thing for us to do. Doing it in a very concrete way, coming up with concrete tests, makes it much more real, and makes the conversation much more meaningful, instead of the random bull session that we usually engage in. I guess if I were a betting person, I would probably put the odds somewhere below 50% for this to come to fruition - I'm a skeptic and a realist, along with being an idealistic crazy person who apparently doesn't have enough to do <G>.</DIV><DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Regards,</DIV><DIV>Fred Sturm</DIV><DIV>University of New Mexico</DIV><DIV><A href="mailto:fssturm@unm.edu">fssturm@unm.edu</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Oct 12, 2007, at 8:05 AM, Barbara Richmond wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; ">Well, if you need something to keep you busy.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; ">Some of you old-timers may remember when I was on staff at Illinois Wesleyan. When I started there I had been a tech for 8 years and was one of those "home" tuners. Yet, I got the call and was told, "I hear you're the only game in town." I started out on a contract. When I handed the director of music and piano faculty the Guidelines, the director's response was that it was a self-serving piece of propaganda. He wanted to know what other similar schools were doing. Well, that wasn't going to work, was it? To sell IWU's school of music on a full time position (90 instruments) I had to write reports using "IWU's" numbers and data, explaining what in meant in terms for "IWU." After 5 years and umpteen reports later, the position was made full time and the rebuilding and piano purchasing plans were approved. I was there one semester with full benefits and then my husband accepted that job in Texas....</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"></FONT><FONT face="Arial" size="2"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; ">Anyway, the point is, they didn't give a you know what about my qualifications (RPT, assistant to God, whatever). What counted was the work I did and that I could explain in terms that they would understand how they would benefit from the proposals I made.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; ">If it were up to me, which it is not, I'd concentrate on upgrading skills and finding ways for individual techs to communicate with their faculty and administration (including making reports & proposals specific to one's institution). </SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; ">BTW, I know the story behind a former job ad from a major institution. A faculty member, or some faculty members wanted a certain technician, but according to law, they had to advertise. So, they wrote the qualifications to match that certain technician--RPT, Bachelor of Music, Master of Music. It turned out that the "wanted" technician found something else he wanted more, the surprise was there was another tech out there interested in the job that had those qualifications. What I do know,<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN> is that when a professor from that major institution came to visit at IWU, he told one of my faculty that he wished they had pianos like ours at his school.... I was sort of surprised because I was wrestling with mid 70's S&Ss. It's crazy out there...</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; ">Man, I've got to get to work.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"></FONT> </DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; ">Barbara Richmond, RPT</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT face="Arial" size="2"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; ">near Peoria, Illinois</SPAN></FONT></DIV></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>