John-Paul Ferguson Statement

I've wrenched at the Bike Kitchen for about a year; before that, I volunteered at Bikes Not Bombs in Boston for five years. In real life I teach in the Organizational Behavior group at Stanford Business School. As you might guess, I have a long-standing interest in voluntary organizations: how they're run, how they interact with the rest of the world, why people join (and leave) them. I also like having projects to do; on Tuesdays I usually manage the volunteers and help oversee organizing the shop in addition to straight mechanic work.

Like many BK staff, I'm interested in using our space better. I'm also interested in improving our stock of parts. We solve this stuff best when working together to brainstorm ideas and build them out; work nights are great examples of this. Thus I'm interested in joining the Board partly for a selfish reason: when I wonder whether it's "OK" for us to start a project to improve those things, it would be easier to decide that if I had a better picture of what our long-term goals, financial health, relations with the property owners and suchlike are. Being on the Board helps me learn those things.

What would I bring to the Board? I have a lot of experience with the day-to-day maintenance and operation of the shop at this point. I've worked with organizations like this one before. I actually teach elements of strategic planning and organization design for a living--it isn't that I'd give the BK the same advice that I give MBAs, but I can talk about what other types of organizations have done when faced with challenges like growth or high membership turnover and how well their plans worked out.