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18 October 2015 | beautystorebusiness.com Beauty Store Business: Please tell us about your background and how you became involved with The Professional Beauty Association. SLEEPER: I have a finance background; I'm a CPA by training. The association, then called the Beauty and Barber Supply Institute, hired me 20 years ago on the finance side. While the organization grew and things changed with the merger that occurred, I found the work really entertain- ing, rewarding and interesting. Obviously, this industry is amazing, and I loved the work we did. One thing led to another, and around 1998 I had the opportunity to get out of just the financial side, moving into operations and general management of the association, then ultimately to the executive director's spot, which I assumed in 2001. How would you describe the goals of the PBA? We are a unified trade association that represents the entire professional-beauty space. We have a home for virtually anybody in the industry through our mem- bership. The PBA became official in 2002, and then became fully operational in 2003. The whole focus has been to create a robust, diversified trade group. We don't focus on just one aspect, such as trade shows; we realized there are a lot of issues we should focus on. We needed to become more diversified and have a much broader perspective, which entails diversifying our member- ship base—we can't look at the industry from a single lens. Early on, as BBSI, we had the distributors' perspective, but as we moved to the PBA, we needed to represent manufacturers, salons and salon technicians to more fully represent the industry. Without that support, you have a difficult job when you're trying to make long-term, macro change. What major challenges does the PBA face? And what are you most proud of in terms of it successes? There are challenges that we have on many different levels. From a membership perspective, we need to create awareness of what we do and who we are—letting people know there's a professional trade group in the industry that can help them grow their businesses and careers no matter what their role. Also, some issues are so big that we have to take baby steps, making incremen- tal changes to make these bigger things happen. You need a lot of planning and anticipation. Once momentum starts to build, it gets easier, but getting there can be a challenge with the big-picture issues. I am most proud that the association from the membership and leadership per- spectives has been very unified. There have been no significant rifts, which speaks well to our long-term mission: to help the entire industry. We're like a small government with a lot of stake- holders and constituents plus volunteer leadership driving our strategy and the association's position, but they're all really well-focused on our general direc- tion. We haven't had to waste a lot of time trying to keep the group unified. What is your role within the organization? Like in all small businesses, I do a bit of everything. My role is unique in that I man- age my team, which I am responsible for. I have a great team that works with me—a full-time staff of 33, including me. They take great pride in their work, and love the industry as much as I do. Then I have a board and leadership structure that's almost the same size as the staff; they're volunteers. They come and go over the years, but there has been great continuity—which comes from the chairman on down. I sit in the middle to make sure we get what we need from the volunteers as far as strategy and direc- tion; then it's my job to make sure that the staff team is pulling in the right direction to fulfill the board's vision and objectives. Mine is a CEO role, but the PBA is like a city government—no one owns the organiza- tion, not me or the board. The membership owns the association—it has a right to vote in its leadership and has a say in what we do. Our job is to serve members' needs and the industry's needs. The PBA has recently introduced a different members structure. How does this benefit members? That has been a big undertaking for us. I think it's made the membership structure more contemporary as we've looked at the best practices other trade groups have implemented while using our own experi- ence, including the feedback we got from our members. We've made the member- ship experience easier to understand and Images courtesy of The Professional Beauty Association Steve Sleeper, executive director of The Professional Beauty Association, spoke at the annual PBA Business Forum this past July in Las Vegas about the association's efforts to shape public policy. The top challenge on the states side is the issue of deregulation of vocational licensing, says Sleeper. "If there is any one reason we need to put the PBA on the map as a unified association, it's being active in the government affairs and advocacy side through public policy."