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A Brief History of
The Alternative Board TAB®
The Alternative Board TAB®
was founded in St. Louis, MO in 1990
by Allen Fishman. Prior to the formation
of TAB, Allen was president and part-owner
of Tipton Centers, an electronics
firm based in St. Louis. Under Allen's
guidance, Tipton went from private
to a public company. Tipton was eventually
sold allowing Allen to take an early
retirement and move to Aspen, CO.
While in Aspen, Allen realized the
need of small to mid-sized businesses
for a board of directors to provide
sound, practical business advice,
ideas and motivation, much like what
was provided to Tipton once they went
public. This was the basis for the
TAB concept.
The
TAB concept is a simple one: most
challenges faced by smaller businesses
are the same throughout diverse
industries. Bringing together the
leaders of successful, non-competing
businesses to learn from each other's
successes and mistakes, and to benefit
from each other's experience and
perspective means new solutions
and better business for all involved.
The
first TAB Boards were formed in
1990 in St. Louis and eventually
TAB moved its home based to Denver
in 1994. The concept caught on rapidly!
TAB Boards consist of presidents,
CEOs, owners and managing partners
of privately owned businesses. The
boards meet monthly for three or
four hours. In addition to facilitating
the monthly meetings of their TAB
Boards, TAB Certified Facilitators™
of the TAB Boards also meet with
their members in Private Coaching
Sessions to give them one-on-one
assistance with business issues.
A
thorough training process was developed
for TAB Certified Facilitators™
of TAB Boards, each of whom already
had extensive top-level business
management experience, and many
of whom had active consulting practices.
All TAB Certified Facilitators™
form and operate TAB Boards using
the same TAB system and member materials.
In September of 1997, the first
TAB Boards in Canada were established.
There are currently over 50 cities
with TAB Boards operating throughout
the United States and Canada, and
more than 100 separate territories
in which TAB Board Meetings are
held, and our growth continues to
increase. TAB started overseas operations
in 2001. TAB Membership currently
exceeds 1,500 in the US and Canada.
TAB
Boards have been operating across
the Carolinas since 1998 and has
grown to over 80 members working
in more than a dozen Boards. We
continue to seek qualified Owners/CEOs
of Small & Closely Held Businesses
to add to our existing Boards to
improve their businesses and those
of our existing TAB Members.
We are continually searching for
those Leaders that "UNDERSTAND
that they
DON'T KNOW what they DON'T KNOW!"
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