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NOMINEE FOR DIRECTOR
Randy Andersen
 Hi! Thank you for considering me as a candidate for election to our Board of Directors. Here is some additional information and detail relating to my application. I am an FI-02 working with SDC (formerly HRDC) as an Internal Control Officer in St. John's Newfoundland.
In 1988 I obtained my Bachelor of Commerce, with a concentration in Accounting, from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Over the next several years I continued my studies on a part time basis and completed an MBA from Memorial in 1996.
After a brief stay with GMAC I accepted a position with Supply and Services Canada in 1988 as the Chief of Finance and Administration. In 1992 I moved to HRDC and worked as the Head of Revenue Accounting before moving to the Regional Finance Officer position in 1996 and my current position in 1999.
I consider myself very fortunate to have held these positions which have provided me with a diverse background encompassing, administration, budgeting and forecasting, revenue and expenditure accounting, and internal audit.
For the past six years I have also served as the local ACFO representative for my department in St. John's. In this capacity I have served as a member of various Labour Management committees representing the interests of the ACFO members employed by SDC in our Region. I have also been an active member of the Occupational Health and Safety Committee for approximately six years and co-chair of the committee for three years. This committee represents the interests of approximately 160 staff at our location.
When time permits I enjoy a variety of sports including sailing and basketball. I am married to a wonderful girl and am the proud father of three great children.
In terms of my role on our Board of Directors and the future of our association I see both opportunities and risks. I remain optimistic that we will be able to make some monetary gains relative to those negotiated by other bargaining units to address some of the problems with recruitment and retention in our classification. If, however, we are unable to attain suitable gains in relation to some of the other professional groups, such as the PE and AU (which also have similar education requirements) in the current collective bargaining process, we should carefully examine our position and consider other options. One option, that should be examined, is affiliation with a larger bargaining unit. This option and the accompanying risks and costs associated with affiliation must be carefully considered by all. I would support exploring this further.
In the current bargaining process, where we have elected not to use binding arbitration, great care must be taken to ensure any strike action is carefully managed. I am particularly concerned for staff members approaching retirement. Strike action could negatively impact these members by lowering their average salary for the calculation pensionable earnings. If strike action is deemed necessary I would not support a full scale walkout. I would, however, support creative or strategic job actions.
There are also a number of areas I would like to help develop. As a local representative I think we need to be more proactive in providing training and expertise to our local members, especially in smaller locales. This can be accomplished in several ways by offering or arranging training sessions for local representatives and by facilitating the formation of local chapters across the country.
I am a great proponent of continuing education and I would like to help foster an environment whereby all of our members have the ability to actively participate in continuing education. It would also be useful to develop, if supported, a forum on our ACFO website to provide members, with questions and issues, access to opinions and expertise across the country. A greater degree of clarity, I feel, is also needed in our own financial reporting for the association. We are currently in a very strong financial position and I would work to ensure this position is maintained. These are some of my ideas and issues which I would like to work towards.
Thank you for your consideration.
Raoul R. Andersen (Randy)
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