INROADS, Inc.

INROADS, Inc. is the national organization for INROADS.  It consists of national staff and a Board of Directors. In the first 30 years, the staff included a President/CEO, public relations, finance, and various other administrative and clerical staff. The responsibilities were to provide guidance, direction, and leadership to the affiliates along with providing all the financial management and annual reporting of operational activities and audited financial statements. INROADS Inc. developed strategic expansion plans that led from one affiliate and 25 interns in 1970 to 50 local affiliates, two international affiliates, one licensee agreement with South Africa, over 500 pre-college students, and close to 7,000 interns in 2000.

A National Board was established. Richard Black/Maremount, James Brice/Arthur Andersen, and Clarence Brice/First National Bank of St. Louis were the first members in 1974. During this period, the initial National Board started with two representatives from each affiliate and as the number of affiliates grew, each local board was limited to one representative and by 2000 there was a National Board and a National Council. The National Board was led by several CEOs from corporations -- the first being Rick Black - Maremount, followed by Phillip Smith - Copperweld, Frederick Stratton – Briggs and Stratton, Bronson Ingram - Ingram Industries, Robert Kennedy - Union Carbide, Macalister Booth – Polaroid, and Ted Kennedy – BE&K.

The National Board’s major responsibilities were to assure the INROADS mission was being followed and remained financially sound, and to plan the growth and expansion of the organization to other companies and sites. Each local affiliate was assessed a fee based upon the number of students participating in the local affiliate’s basic college component. These fee assessments were used to provide affiliates with assistance in fund raising, hiring, training and supervision of new staff, training of students, preparing promotional materials and accounting services.