July 2010 -- Just like any membership-driven group, USPTA gains a ­certain number of members, and also loses a predictable group of people based on various factors, including the economy, change in career, disability and retirement, just to name a few.

When people decide to drop their membership with USPTA, we encourage them to fill out a questionnaire that helps us understand their reasons for letting their affiliation lapse and allows us to tweak our benefits to meet the needs of a changing membership.

So, about this time each year, I read these questionnaires, including personal notes and entire letters from members who are dropping their membership. Some have endured hardships, including illnesses or the loss of jobs, while others are retiring or moving on to new careers outside the tennis industry.

This year, as I read the various notes, I was surprised at the number of people who listed employer-related issues, including a lack of benefits, as their reason for leaving the profession. One member wrote, "As naïve as it sounds, I would rejoin if you could give me medical insurance."

Another member commented, "The club where I work offers no vacation time, no sick time, no benefits at all." Other members complained that tennis was not viewed as a popular sport, pros are given little respect by owners and managers and clubs are still doing away with tennis courts and cutting pros' salaries, which further limits their ability to adequately promote the game and teach.

While it's sad to admit, this member feedback is rather telling about some of the current attitudes of the club/facility business toward tennis-teaching professionals. It's only natural to feel unappreciated if you work for a business, yet your compensation is cut and your job does not include vacation, sick time or health insurance.

The news from the tennis industry is good. Tennis is one of the only traditional sports showing growth even in a sluggish economy, and many of our members say their lesson schedules are full. Both the USTA and TIA say we need more teachers, yet it's not implausible to question how our profession expects to attract a larger workforce if they are not given the respect they deserve. It's easy to see how happy, well-treated people would be more willing to take on extra projects and be supportive of the many industry programs touted by the tennis industry.

As a trade association, we cannot directly supply the benefits that are usually part of each professional's compensation package through an employer. It's our job to advocate for the entire profession so employers and owners view USPTA Professionals as valued assets to their businesses. To spread this message, we communicate with leaders of the club industry, we write articles for their magazines and we place ads in magazines and on websites. We are promoting you and your skills so that employers will see the need to provide the benefits that so many other professions receive.

As a supporter and promoter of the tennis-teaching profession, USPTA provides education and other resources that enable you to not only enhance your professional skills, but also tools to help you promote your expertise to employers. It's through this team effort that we hope to improve the teaching professional's livelihood, including the benefits that employees provide.

An example of this is USPTA's "Technology Tools" that were released earlier this year and placed on the home page of our website uspta.com. Using these tools to perform regular daily tasks will give employers a more professional impression of your job skills and help you become a "new-style pro."

We would welcome the help of our influential industry partners, USTA and TIA. Their direct appeal to owners and managers on your behalf would help spread the word that a quality tennis professional is vital to a facility's success, especially if he or she is given the time and leeway to develop and manage programs, interact with customers and work with other departments to enhance the overall image of the club.

As I said in an earlier message, club managers and owners call me on a regular basis. They explain their desire to hire top tennis managers to run their programs and interact with their members, yet many don't seem to understand that they must adequately compensate hard-working, experienced professionals with some of the same benefits they expect as managers: insurance, vacation, sick leave, and maybe even retirement benefits!

So, our members are left feeling "pushed" out of the management team and forced more and more into on-court duties. We know USPTA pros can and do offer much more from their arsenal of professional skills. And, we will keep on promoting you as a total professional - someone who can manage an entire department, its staff and a multitude of other business responsibilities as well as teaching.