056 | HOA Board Heroes: How to Act as a Servant Leader in Your Community

Robert Nordlund: 0:00

Hi everyone, I have a special announcement to make. As you know, the mission of our podcast is to affirm, inspire, and motivate HOA board members. One way we hope to do that is with the launch of our new board member merch store. As a gift to boards who are meeting online, we're offering dozens of free and fun zoom backgrounds. Designed specifically with you in mind. We've provided a link to the new store in our show notes, please check it out.

Warren Buckingham: 0:31

The community matters a great deal to me, and I see the impact of the work that the board does, almost on a daily basis. I also am a firm believer in the concept of servant leadership. I try to apply that in all of my interactions with my fellow board members with committee members and with the community at large.

Announcer: HOA Insights: 0:57

Common Sense for Common Areas, exists to help all 2 million volunteer board members nationwide have the right information at the right time to make the right decisions for their future. This podcast is sponsored by for companies that care about board members, association insights and marketplace, association reserves, community financials, and Kevin Davis Insurance Services. You'll find links to their websites and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund: 1:28

thankless job will come to your mind when you hear those two words. Having served on the board of my condominium association for several years followed by decades of experience in this industry. There's one job that without a doubt deserves to be at the top of the list: an elected volunteer HOA board member. So as a regular feature of our weekly podcast is one episode a month devoted to sharing the stories of real life unsung board heroes. In our eyes a board here was one of the 2 million elected volunteers who are worthy of recognition for simply performing a thankless job well, love you match our definition of a board hero or know someone who does, please reach out to us. Our contact details are provided in the show notes. Well, welcome back to Hoa insights common sense for common areas. I'm Robert Nordlund. And I'm here to share the story of an unsung aboard hero named Warren Buckingham who I've had the pleasure to meet personally, I quickly learned that the whole world knows him as buck. This is episode 56. And if you missed meeting any of our other board heroes, you can find them easily on our website, Hoa insights.org, or on our YouTube channel or by subscribing to Hoa insights on your favorite podcast platform. But before you hear Buck's story, let me introduce you to one of our generous sponsors.

Russell Munz: 2:52

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Warren Buckingham: 3:24

Hi, my name is Buck Buckingham, and I have served as a volunteer on the board of Parkside Plaza condominium association for six and a half years. When I'm not wearing my board member hat, I am lucky enough to be fully retired. And while I do in fact, enjoy my board responsibilities. I'm very involved in local church activities. I'm fond of reading New York Times crossword puzzles, international travel and home improvement projects. The three words that I would use to describe the job of a board member in the current situation I am the president Our board is that it is a position of service of trust and stewardship. The main story I'd like to tell is that while I know it's not the case for lots of board members, for me, this is not a thankless role. It's a role that actually pays real dividends. There's a great sense of satisfaction for me and being able to be of service to my neighbors to convene and collaborate with an effective board as well as our various committees. And I think that looking at this as a role that plays benefit pays benefits rather than being thankless is one that also inspires a different response from the community.

Robert Nordlund: 4:53

Parkside Plaza is a 251 unit high rise condominium in Silver Springs Maryland, with its total budget of about 2.7 million. The property was built in 1964 as luxury apartments, before being converted into condominium units in 1981. Book bought his condo about eight years ago. And as you might have gleaned from his introduction, it appears that he really enjoys serving his community. As the president of Parkside plazas, board of directors, we decided to ask him what first motivated him to get involved with a governance of his association,

Warren Buckingham: 5:30

I was lucky enough to have a neighbor directly across the hall from me who had lived in the building for almost 30 years. And in our literally first conversation, she said, You need to be involved. This is a healthy community committees need new voices. We'd like to encourage Needless to say, I was pleased to hear that Buck volunteered people to serve at the time she was serving as the chair of our rules committee. And following her lead. I think the very next month, I attended my first meeting of the Finance Committee. And I think our rule was that after attending three meetings, you become a member of the committee. So I served for six or seven months on the Finance Committee. And then at the next annual meeting, we were one candidate shy of a full slate of board members. And I've done this several times in my life, and I actually haven't regretted it. But I raised my hand and agreed to be nominated from the floor. And that's how I came to join the board. And it's been a very interesting six and a half years because I in my first year, I served as the director at large. And the following year, I was elevated to the role of vice president after about a year and a half, we had an unexpected resignation by our treasurer. And then President asked me if I would take on the role of treasurer which was a stretch for me, I knew a lot about budgets, but not about Association budgets. But I did that job for two years and found it hugely satisfying and, and also a great opportunity to to engage my brain in ways that I hadn't, and then for the last year and a half have served as himself freely, and that the board was actively searching for new voices on committees. As we've seen with previous board hero episodes long serving board members can dominate meetings with their own agendas and tailor the composition of the board to their will. And this made us wonder what the term length for the board seats were or if they even had term limits. All of our board positions are for two year terms and terms are staggered so that we have two members up for reelection or two positions open for election. And the following year. We have three positions on an annual basis after the annual meeting. The board from among us members elects our various officers. My current term as a board member continues through September of 2025. And my current term as president will either continue or will be will be changed when the board meet. After our 2024 annual meeting. It seemed

Robert Nordlund: 8:25

clear from his last answer that buck was determined to continue serving on Parkside plazas board of directors, we asked him what was motivating him to stay on the board and continue serving the community.

Warren Buckingham: 8:37

I think I stay involved because the community matters a great deal to me. And I see the impact of the work that the board does. almost on a daily basis. We are very proud of our property. We take stewardship of both the resources that are committed through our HOA fees, but also what we've inherited from our predecessors. I also am a firm believer in the concept of servant leadership. And I try to apply that in all of my interactions with my fellow board members with committee members. And with the community at large. I have found this incredibly satisfying work. And I don't know that I will do it forever. I'm sure that I walked as long as the community and my fellow board members appreciate my service that I'm I'm I'm down for the longer haul,

Robert Nordlund: 9:39

Buck mentioned something really interesting in that last answer the idea of servant leadership. In the context of community associations This means that the board is primarily serving the needs of the community at large. And this is near and dear to my heart and ideally is what every board of directors should be striving towards. Naturally this made us wonder how How much time Buck was investing into serving his community each week. And here's what he had to say. It's seasonal.

Warren Buckingham: 10:08

I meet one on one with our resident General Manager on a weekly basis, I serve as liaison to to our standing committees, obviously spend a fair amount of time preparing myself for meetings of both the board and committees. So I would say that it's on average between four and six hours a week. But if it's budget season, or if we're coming up on the annual meeting, or we have a special project underway, it quickly can can jump to 8-12 hours in a week.

Robert Nordlund: 10:44

Buck's enthusiasm and determination towards investing that much time into the community at Parkside Plaza assured us that he was a highly motivated and dedicated board member. We then decided to ask him what personality traits or special gifts he brought to the Board of Directors when he joined.

Warren Buckingham: 11:02

I've had a very interesting career trajectory that involved working first in the not for profit sector, and then working for the federal government. And then after retiring from the federal government working as an independent contractor, I've worked domestically and internationally lived overseas in Kenya for seven years. And along the way, I was responsible for budgets, when I was a much younger man that were maybe 50 or $60,000 a year and my last big federal job, I was responsible for a budget that exceeded a half a million billion dollars a year 500 plus million, all of those things have come into play in my role as a board member. But I think equally importantly, I have served on not for profit boards over the years community associations, and international NGO based in the United Kingdom, as well as as my local Episcopal Church and all of those things have equipped me for for this role.

Robert Nordlund: 12:07

It was clear to us that Buck's career history had prepared him well for his duties as a community association board member. However, this did make us wonder about the other side of the equation. So we asked buck, if he felt the Association had effectively set him up for success in his first position on the board. No

Warren Buckingham: 12:26

one shows up for this job, I don't think knowing quite what they've signed on to I do feel that I was fortunate. We had a different general manager at the time, he was a bit more old school. Part of what old school meant to him was provide absolutely as much information as you possibly can. And so I was presented with a binder that was bigger than I knew they actually made binders. I think it was a 14 inch thick binder with every document that I could possibly need to be effective in my role. I also had the opportunity for an in depth one on one conversation both with the general manager and the current president of the board. And then I think one of the most effective things that we do that I would absolutely promote as a best practice is every year after our our annual meeting, we conduct a closed Executive Session. That includes participation from our outside counsel. And she does an amazing job of sort of summarizing, from a lawyer's perspective, the key roles and responsibilities of board members, but also talks about ethical contact, conduct conflicts of interest, confidentiality, even though I've now sat through that conversation, sticks sticking will be seven times. I feel like I learned something new every year when we go through it. In addition, I don't know whether there's a state of Maryland requirement, but Montgomery County, which is the suburban county in which we're located, has a cc OC commission on commonly owned communities. And they have a very, very effective online training program. And you actually are required to complete that online training within the first I think 90 days of having been elected to a board position, and they actually monitor compliance with that. And encourage recertification at three year intervals and like our legal briefings, I have found taking that training a second time I have a different set of eyes and a different set of questions because I had a couple of years ago experience. So I think there are great things that can be done to set board members up for success.

Robert Nordlund: 15:07

We then decided to ask Buck what his favorite and least favorite parts of serving on the board were. While we usually hear very different answers to each side of this question from our board heroes, it turned out that for Buck, there was a fair amount of overlap between the two. And here's why,

Warren Buckingham: 15:24

I think one of the things that I enjoy most about being on the board is getting into the weeds appreciating the details that are involved in keeping a 251 household vertical village. Healthy. And I also would say that one of the things that I least enjoy about serving on the board is the necessity sometimes to dive into the weeds, and so the same activity can be both very engaging and very frustrating. Getting

Robert Nordlund: 15:56

into the weeds is often what can really stymie a board from reaching a decision and can easily lead to board dysfunction. And this is especially true in our post COVID world where residents are home more frequently and notice more things to complain about. We next asked Buck how the COVID pandemic affected Parkside plazas, board meetings. And if they had switched to conducting their meetings, virtually COVID changed

Warren Buckingham: 16:23

everything for I think all of us and they certainly changed for associations, we made a very early pivot to zoom and, and virtual meetings, we invested a little bit in technology to make it look not quite as homemade. As as some of our early adoption of technology was. Last year, we invested in higher quality cameras and video monitors so that we could begin to hold hybrid meetings in our community room where the board would be physically present. But we will also be available to residents and owners who were not able to participate in person we're continuing to experiment with should we do hybrid meetings once a quarter and virtual meetings the rest of the time, and we haven't really settled on a permanent pattern yet. But right now we're we're more virtual than we are either in person or hybrid. We're

Robert Nordlund: 17:24

We're happy to hear that the transition into using virtual and hybrid meeting formats went well for Parkside Plaza. We then asked Bach how he felt about the board culture. And if they had a particular focus at this point in time, and here's what Brooke had to say about that. I think

Warren Buckingham: 17:40

the board at Parkside Plaza is one that is very much focused on putting the community values and priorities first, we don't have a history or a pattern of board members who come with a particular agenda that they are wedded to. And I think that's a function of history. But it's also a function of leadership. We have an amazingly competent property manager and I have a very strong partnership with him. And I think we put together board meeting agendas that keep us focused on the things that really matter. If I were looking for some change in the board, what I would most welcome was more participation from younger and more diverse homeowners, we currently have a bias of gray hair. But we've also had an interesting shift in gender dynamics. When I joined the board six and a half years ago, I was the lone male member. And the other four members were were women, we now in just that short period of time are in exactly the opposite dynamic where four of us are men, and only one board member is a woman. As we look to the future, and we look to recruiting, I'm hoping we can find ways to incentivize more diversity in terms of both ethnicity, ethnicity, but also gender tenure in the building tenure as a homeowner, because I think all of those perspectives are very important. I think the highest priority for the board, sort of day in and day out, is keeping in mind that we are an older building, and that our infrastructure is aging, and we always need to be ready for both planned repairs, but also for surprises that come along the way. Part of being as prepared as possible involves being as informed as possible. So we take undertaking reserve studies and keeping those reserve studies current as a critical priority. And I our budgeting process in which different members of the board are more or less in the weeds engaged is a key part of our work together on an annual basis. We have three elevators. And there are times when it feels like there's always one not working. And that's simply not acceptable to the board and to the community. And so yeah, infrastructure is priority one, priority two and priority three,

Robert Nordlund: 20:32

we thought that we already knew the answer to this question, but we felt it was worth asking buck if he thought that Parkside Plaza was a well run association. And if there was anything he thought they could be doing better, here are bucks thoughts on that matter?

Warren Buckingham: 20:46

Hi, obviously, I'm biased. But I think that the association is well run, unlike some properties that resemble ours. We are almost exclusively self managed. We contract with an outside property management firm to handle our finances. But we the board directly employ our general manager, the general manager is empowered. And with the support from the board hires, our engineering staff, our housekeeping staff, and arranges contracts for other critical services. That works very, very well. For us. We are incredibly fortunate to have a general manager on site who lives less than 15 minutes away. So if he's needed, in the off hours, he's close by. But he's also a younger person who is incredibly mature and my interactions with him, I'm just constantly kind of scratching my head about how are you this young, and you know, this much about human nature and how communities like this work, he's part of the secret sauce of what makes this community work as well as it does. And the board and I consider that relationship, a very important one. But we also have our eyes wide open. And so we have regular conversations about succession planning. So that if some amazing opportunity that's irresistible presents itself, for him, we're not cut short and where we're ready in terms of what I wish management might do differently or do better. It's hard to come up with anything real specific, I know that there are challenges managing are fairly what what can feel like a large staff complement, and enter ensure ensuring that we are remaining competitive that we are providing adequate supervision and, and growth opportunities for our staff. And so we have members of the board on an ongoing basis, either in ad hoc groupings or because of their committee assignments who are focused on, you know, is our compensation adequate? Do we have the right mix of benefits that we're able to offer to retain staff, Human Resources is is a complex function.

Robert Nordlund: 23:13

As a founder of a company that provides reserve studies and as a reserve specialist myself, I'm always curious about how the board heroes featured on this program are responding to their associations reserve studies, we asked buck about Parkside plazas percent funded in reserves. And if they had ever tried to pass a special assessment

Warren Buckingham: 23:33

I don't have that number at my fingertips we've just completed in a new reserve study that was a bit of an eye opener. We're a bit shy of where we would like to be. And so we're planning to incrementally increase our allocations to replacement reserves on an annual basis. When I first became a property owner, a special assessment a two year special assessment was passed. That both interrupted a very large planned capital improvement project. But also try to deal with a crisis situation that was seven and eight years ago and we haven't had a special assessment since that time. As we look at the results of our most recent reserve study, one of the possibilities that the board will need to carefully consider is whether we might need a special assessment of a couple of years duration to make sure that we can move forward on multiple big ticket projects that are in our five to seven year time horizon.

Robert Nordlund: 24:48

Passing a special assessment always presents a challenge to the board especially when the cost is spread over a number of future years. After all Mother Nature and Father Time aren't taking a break from degrading other components. Is that will need to be repaired or replaced in those future years. We then asked Buck if there are any other challenges he faced while serving on the board.

Warren Buckingham: 25:08

I think the most engaging challenge that had a very happy outcome that I've dealt with since joining the governing the board is responding to a sort of groundswell of community concerned about secondhand smoke and smoke infiltration between units in a building as old as ours, and the way it was constructed, it's virtually impossible to prevent odors from from traveling from one unit to another. We were extremely fortunate to have community members who are willing to take on ad hoc roles in raising awareness about this. We had an extended conversations with our legal counsel, as well as with other montgomery county high rise properties that had gone through the process of establishing a smoke free standard. And after a year of hard work. At our annual meeting last year, we had to achieve a super majority quorum of 66%. And we were delighted that we had a 77.7% Quorum, either by proxy or in person participation at the annual meeting, we had three somewhat controversial, or at least challenging bylaw or declarations that we voted on nonsmoking being one of them, the second being revising our limitations on short term rentals. And thirdly, providing a sort of nuclear option for own homeowners who were seriously delinquent in their fees, which was suspension of amenities. And all three of those passed by the required supermajority. And so that was a challenge that has had a very happy outcome. And we have spent the intervening months since the annual meeting, developing the policy resolution and the rules and regulations, especially associated with transitioning to a smoke free property that kicked in on April 1, just a few weeks ago, and I checked on almost a daily basis. And the number of complaints about smoking filtration has plummeted. And so I'm I'm very satisfied with with the change in the community, and the improvement to community health that we've been able to affect. In

Robert Nordlund: 27:46

his last answer. Buck briefly mentioned that they were revising their rules and regulations on short term rentals, which is a trend that's becoming more commonplace at community association level and city government level. We then asked buck if the units at Parkside Plaza are largely owner occupied,

Warren Buckingham: 28:03

and Parkside is fortunate that well, over 75% of units are owner occupied. And this is the result of a tough decision boldly made by the board about 15 years ago, when they passed a bylaw amendment to put a cap on the number of rental units. We

Robert Nordlund: 28:22

then decided to ask buck if there were any other external trends or factors that were dominating board conversations. He provide an interesting but not uncommon

Warren Buckingham: 28:32

Yo u know, the world changes on a daily answer, you basis. And I think it's incumbent upon board members to pay attention and make sure that we're not missing significant changes in the external environment that impact on us, I wouldn't pretend that we do it perfectly. But with strong support that sometimes includes a kick in the back of the pants. Our board, our our general manager really insists that the board takes the time each year to develop goals for the year ahead. An example of how the world outside is changing us is changing that we have embraced and included in our board goals for the last two years is an invitation bordering on a requirement that all of our standing committees and the board itself, be involved in continuing conversations about how climate change is going to affect the building like ours. I serve as liaison to the landscape committee. And we have rich and fruitful conversations about how the changing climate changes is going to affect one of our most significant amenities because we sit in almost six acres of park like property. Some communities I now have a Green Committee and related to an earlier answer I gave about our aging infrastructure. We reinvigorated a more of a Green Committee. As a committee on infrastructure technology and the environment, we have a lot of infrastructure to concern ourselves with technology is constantly changing. And whenever we're looking at infrastructure or technology, we want to consider the impact on the environment and how we can be more responsible in in the last year we have replaced year and a half, we've replaced our entire HVAC infrastructure. And we paid very, very careful attention to the utility demands. And the efficiency of that, you know, really significant part of our infrastructure moving forward. And we feel like we're being better citizens, and not contributing so much to a changing climate. But we're also counting on significantly reduce your utility bills in the future.

Robert Nordlund: 31:04

Finally, we want to close out this episode, as we often do with our board heroes, by asking buck if he had any advice or insights for board members tuning into this program, when

Warren Buckingham: 31:14

you serve on a board, it's very easy to focus on either the board itself, or the board and its associated standing committees. But I also think that we miss opportunities, if we don't look for ways that ad hoc committees can both lessen the board's workload. bring new voices and people into the conversations. Sometimes people are just not willing or able to say yes, I'll join a committee that meets on a monthly basis and commit three or four hours a month to doing that. But if you have a time limited activity, you're more likely to get people to say yes, and we had a very successful experience a bit over three years ago when we formed an ad hoc committee to prepare our application for the regional CIO CI community of the Year Award, which we were delighted to win. But I think besides having a nice banner to display, one of the most significant benefits that we we got from that was a younger, newer homeowner who served on that ad hoc committee enthusiastically ran to serve on the board. And so it turned out to be a bridge to board service. I'm constantly looking for appropriate opportunities for us to create more time limited ways that community members can be involved in the association. We

Robert Nordlund: 32:50

want to publicly acknowledge buck for performing a thankless job well, we'd also like to compliment the entire board of directors at Parkside Plaza for taking their responsibility seriously to act in the best interests of their association. And of course, we want to add our congratulations to Parkside Plaza for winning their local car chapters community of the Year award. Well, we hope you gained some HOA insights from bookstores and that it helps you bring common sense to your common area. Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to another great episode next week. And remember, if you match our definition of a board hero or know someone who does, please reach out to us, our contact details are provided in the show notes.

Announcer: 33:35

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