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History and Origins of ASSIST:
1980s
By Dale Watson, Lifetime ASSIST
Member
In the eighties, the security industry was hit with an insurance crisis. Many companies had insurance with a surplus line carrier. The board adopted a position that if the insurance company was not licensed in Texas the proof of insurance certificate was void. Many companies found their licenses were being revoked. ASSIST sued the Board and filed a restraining order to stop the license revocations.
Walt Nuels was in the insurance business and came to the rescue. He was a well-spoken, articulate man and testified at many of the hearings. With his help the insurance crisis was averted. Walt became a trusted advisor. Many in the industry purchased insurance with Walt. Walt had other ideas that would help our fledgling association. He had first-hand knowledge of the inner workings of the associations he dealt with. Many of his ideas were excitedly embraced. However, some of the founding members of the association were burned out. They had, for more than a decade, led the fight for ASSIST and the board while neglecting their own businesses and spending excessive amounts of their own money to move the agenda of ASSIST.
Walt�s ideas were pretty grandiose, and the founding members were ready to pass the baton. With a little creative paperwork Walt obtained a class �A� license. He was nominated and elected President of ASSIST. Bud Price was elected EVP, I had been the editor of the ASSIST UP-DATE and was tapped for the VP, and Marc Hibbs, Secretary/Treasurer. Marc was a fiery kind of guy able to generate excitement in any kind of debate. He also had the uncanny ability of dissecting legislative or legal documents for the innocuous comma, is, or, whereto, and therefore, that changed the implied intent of the legislation. He saved our bacon on more than one occasion.
The ASSIST Board 1981-1983. Left to right is
Dale Watson, Bud Price, Walt Nuels, and Marc Hibbs.
With any new administration you have a vision of where you would like to take the association. In the past, everything we did was toward legislation and dealing with the board. (Who says history doesn�t repeat itself?) Many members weren�t that excited about legislation and wanted more information on how to run a successful security, alarm or investigation business. These new ASSIST members had diverse backgrounds in how they chose the security industry. They came from law enforcement, military or had resigned their guard positions to become an owner operator. Many lacked administrative, financial, sales or supervisory skills and thought their memberships in ASSIST would offer them the opportunity to attend seminars where information in these areas could be obtained.
Like always, ASSIST was mired with legislation that would do harm to the industry and needed legislation to correct legislation that had already been passed.
Additionally, there were other problems. Some of the meetings were contentious in the beginning. We now had chapters with their elected officers. The North Texas chapters had their agenda as well as the South Texas area. Then there was the rest of Texas that didn�t fall into either category and had no representation, except for the state officers.
There was some spirited lobbying going on inside the organization. However, if one side or the other failed to gain the approval of the executive board for their proposal, they would lobby legislators themselves. Sometimes their lobbying efforts were in opposition to the general membership, and they were doing it as ASSIST. Some legislators advised us that if we wanted their help we needed to reign in these chapters.
After someone in the Houston chapter absconded with the chapter funds it was decided to disband the chapters. There were other reasons for dissolving the chapters, including some legal issues on how the chapters were formed in the first place. It was debated and accepted to do away with the chapters.
To be continued ... Walt�s idea for ASSIST.
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