A Rising Tide Raises all Ships

American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) executive director Rob Paterkiewicz talks about competition, “The ASHI Experience,” and why he’s concerned about ASTM.

 

 

Communicator: The interview process started a couple of days before I flew out to conduct this interview. I got an email from you that said, “I’ve just re-read your interview from a previous Communicator, and I’m afraid I’d better warn you that I will not be as ‘interesting.’ In fact, you should know that I serve as the executive director at the pleasure of an elected board of directors. ASHI is not about me.” Why is it important for you to start out by saying that ASHI is not about you?

 

Paterkiewicz: An association by its very definition is not about an individual. It’s about a group of individuals who have a common interest and come together for a common good. It can’t be about any one person; that defeats the purpose of what an association is. There’s nothing wrong with a company being run by an individual or even taking on the persona of an individual. I’ve got twenty years of experience not just with ASHI but with other organizations. It never has been about the CEO or the elected president. It’s a culmination of a lot of different people.

 

Communicator: You came to ASHI in 1995. It’s now 2007. You’ve had twelve years with ASHI. What do you think are some of the biggest challenges that you and ASHI have had to overcome?

 

Paterkiewicz: State legislation is probably the number one challenge that we have faced. When I joined ASHI in 1995, I believe there was only one state that had regulation and that was Texas. A few years went by before we began to see more and more states; we went from one in 1995 and there are thirty-one or thirty-two now. Unfortunately, there are states and there are laws out there that legitimize home inspectors that may not necessarily have the best qualifications It took a long time for the organization [ASHI] to be able to get involved and help those who are opposed to it to understand that just because we are getting involved doesn’t mean we support licensing. But, if it’s going on and you can’t stop it, at some point you have to get involved so that it is not detrimental to the organization.

 

Certainly the access that the web has provided us has been wonderful but it has certainly created difficulty as well. Anyone can build a web page and say what they want to say and make claims and do all sorts of stuff. Sometimes it’s hard to dispute that, especially when anyone in the world can have access to it. It’s kind of a double-edged sword.

 

Communicator: I’m sure you’re aware that there are plenty of places on the web where people might read bad things about ASHI or places where ASHI is maligned. I have an example here. It’s a couple of years old, but it caught my eye. The last paragraph says, “I’m going to sound like a broken record: See an ASHI logo, run like the poor consumer in your report should have.” How does ASHI respond?

 

 

Paterkiewicz: You know, the only thing that we can ever do is try to take the high road. Yet, when there are damaging false statements made, ASHI has often taken legal action. The difficulty is that, first of all, there’s time involved when you have to take legal actions. There’s money involved when you have to take legal action. Frankly, if ASHI were to spend it’s time dispelling claims that are being made or fighting in a court, we really wouldn’t have a whole lot of time to try and focus on our membership and on bettering ourselves. Have we made mistakes? Absolutely. Everybody makes mistakes, and I think we’ve learned from a lot of our mistakes.

 

Communicator: Let’s talk about some of ASHI’s programs. How new is the Parallel Inspection Program?

 

Paterkiewicz: It’s fairly new. It was introduced mid to late last year. It’s a really cool program.

 

Communicator: Why is that?

 

Paterkiewicz: It’s not a mentoring or a shadowing or a ride along type of thing; it is a real inspection being conducted. This program allows the inspector to work with a certified inspector. They both go to the same property. They both conduct a full inspection. Then the certified inspector will sit down with the other inspector and review the report. We provide them with materials that we use in our verification program. We verify that the report does meet the standards of practice. It [the Parallel Inspection Program] does a couple of things. First of all, the inspector is not handing the report off to the homeowner. They’re handing it off to the inspector; there’s one on one training that is phenomenal. Plus, it’s a real inspection. Part of our requirement is submitting 250 fee paid inspections. It’s a real inspection and it counts toward that 250.

 

Communicator: If I’m the newer inspector and you’re the certified inspector, do I call you and say, ‘Here’s my schedule. Which of these can you come along on?’

 

Paterkiwicz: On our website we have an extranet area that is a private area for our membership, and all of the certified inspectors that have signed up for the program are identified there. If I’m a newer inspector and I want to participate, I go and find the inspectors in my area and I contact them privately. We’re really pleased with the program and we’re really pleased to see a lot of our certified inspectors signing up for it because this is a business and people don’t always want to foster along competition. It’s like the old adage of “a rising tide raises all ships;” it’s nice to see some of our certified inspectors giving back.

 

Communicator: What about the Smart Track Program? That’s also pretty new. What does it involve?

 

Paterkiewicz: It’s new, and it’s with Carson Dunlop. It’s been in the works now for about a year. It’s an online education module program. There are twelve modules that will be up and running by this summer. Smart Track is complimentary to the membership of this organization. They can spend an hour online going through this program, the pre-test and the post-test. We also built a chapter component of it so that our chapters can run a session at one of their monthly meetings. We’re pretty excited about it and we’ve had phenomenal response from our members. You’re not going to go through twelve modules and become a home inspector. It’s not promoted like that and it’s not portrayed like that. We’re trying to help raise the bar. We’re trying to help home inspectors better themselves and this profession. Part of our goal is to see the ASHI programs be brought to the university level and to the trade school and vocational schools as well. We want to make sure people are getting proper training. 

 

Communicator: What about ASHI’s relationship with other associations?

 

Paterkiewicz: I can’t tell you that this organization has no interest in taking pot shots at people or organizations. Frankly, I don’t have time to sit there and rant and rave about what other groups are doing. I don’t think I worry too much about us as an organization. Do some of our members rant and rave about other groups? Sure. That may, in fact, be part of the perception out there that some folks have that the nationals are all fighting with each other. In official positions, I don’t think any of us has ever said, “I don’t like you.” Well, that’s not true. There are a couple that have said they don’t like each other, but we’ve never really come out and said, “We don’t like that organization,” officially. Do some of our member say that? Of course. Do some of their members say that about us? Of course.

 

I think that there have been some legal discussions in the past with certain groups where we have all agreed that we’re going to try not to disparage each other. It’s not uncommon for leaders of various organizations to have some discussions with each other. It’s not like we all hate each other. We’re all in the same boat here. In fact I would say that a perfect example of the organizations sort of coming together was this recent ASTM [American Society for Testing and Materials] meeting.

 

Communicator: ASTM met in conjunction with the National Association of Home Inspectors annual conference in Las Vegas in February. What was the general mood at that meeting?

 

Paterkiewicz: It seemed a little awkward to have all of these associations in the same room in Las Vegas. I think it was in the “Godfather” where there was a scene when all of the family bosses were brought together in a room and the doors were locked and they all got blown away. I made a joke that day and said, “If somebody wanted to do away with the profession, today would be the day” because everybody was in that room. There were about seventy or eighty people in that room. They weren’t all leaders of the associations. There were a lot of home inspectors that came. This is a big deal.

 

Communicator: What happened at the meeting?

 

Paterkiewicz: Officially what happened is that the meeting was continued. ASTM managed the meeting. It was their meeting. In the end a vote was taken with all the folks in the room and the vote, essentially, was not to make a decision that day. It’s a big deal. I think it could have a substantial impact on the whole profession. When ASTM was speculating on how this might move forward, they indicated that it would not be the creation of one set of standards. Rather, it would be the creation of ten, twelve, twenty different individual standards. There are a lot of concerns I have about that. I’m not quite sure how it would come together. To break it down into individual pieces kind of defeats the purpose of what the inspection is about.

 

Communicator: Earlier you said, “We’ve made mistakes, and we’ve admitted our mistakes.” Tell me about a mistake ASHI has made.

 

Paterkiewicz: I’m sure a lot of our members would say, “Well that branding program was a big mistake.” ASHI embarked on a branding program about four or five years ago. The goal of the program was to put a more public face on this organization so that homebuyers and sellers would know that ASHI inspectors are the cream of the crop. “The ASHI Experience” is the brand. “The ASHI Experience” is ASHI’s promise to homebuyers and sellers that our inspectors are going to provide the highest level of customer service along with the highest level of technical expertise. We also needed to go out to our own membership and say “We are embarking on this program and we’d like for you to help us fund it because we’re going to get you more exposure and we want to make sure that this membership is providing the best level of customer service.”

 

The mistake that was made was that we researched from our membership the types of things they desired from us, but we didn’t continue to keep going to the membership and touching base with them and saying “What are you still desiring from us?” We just hunkered down and got the work done and then as we were launching all of this stuff, people were saying “What is all this? I never asked for all this.” Some said it was incredible and that there were phenomenal tools they were going to incorporate into their businesses. I think our other mistake was that we rolled out way too much of it at one time. We rolled out a Web site, an image campaign, handbooks, a toolkit, and I think it was overwhelming for a lot of folks. I would say that it was a pretty sizeable mistake, and you know, we lost some folks. They said, “I don’t want to be a part of it and I’m going to move on,” and they did and it was painful. You don’t want to see people leave, especially because of something you’ve done. I would say that’s probably one of the more public mistakes that have been made.

 

Communicator: What would you like people to know about ASHI?

 

Paterkiewicz: I’ve never seen a group of people who are more committed and dedicated to helping people and are dedicated to this organization. We get members who happened to be delayed at O’Hare who get in a cab and come over here just to see the office, just to see ASHI. They love when they come in off the street and they see the ASHI sign. They’re really dedicated people who are really passionate about what they do.

 

ASHI continues to be the best that it can be. We really are an organization that’s based on the highest level of qualifications, not just to become a certified inspector, but all around. Everything this organization tries to do is top notch. We will always continue to do things at the highest level that we possibly can. For those inspectors that have an interest in being a part of that, we welcome them and we’re certainly interested in working with them.