By Jef Saunders, APP President
This issue of The Point is focused on Women in the Piercing Industry. There are countless women who have inspired me and who I could thank for my own personal voyage. That said, I’d like to put the spotlight on someone who I couldn’t imagine the Association of Professional Piercers without: Bethrah Szumski.
Bethrah served the APP as Secretary for many, many years, and it was Bethrah who called me when I was elected to the Board to give me advice. Being a Board Member involves a lot of responsibility, and the learning curve is steep. Were it not for Bethrah explaining the ins and outs of joining the Board, I would have been lost. In hindsight she may regret making that phone call to me, because I have leaned on her for advice in all aspects of my life ever since. Very rarely does more than a month go by without me reaching out to her for insight, advice, or just a shoulder to lean on.
For those not in the know, Bethrah has been with the APP since just about the beginning. She has served as President and Secretary, but also was deeply involved in our Conference for years. She also spearheaded some of our organization’s forays into international Conferences in Amsterdam in the early 2000s. These Conferences helped inspire piercers in Europe to start their own organizations. There is virtually no part of the APP that has not benefited from Bethrah’s involvement.
It is tough for us today to remember that the APP was once a very young organization that could have disappeared without spectacular leadership and tremendous sacrifice by our early volunteers. Bethrah’s commitment to the APP and its mission led her to put in countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears. As someone who has benefited tremendously from the efforts of the early APP, I have huge amounts of gratitude for all of the early Board Members and volunteers. That gratitude knows no bounds when I think of Bethrah.
As she segued out of her role as Secretary (and in the process trained our current Secretary, Aaron Pollack), Bethrah pitched the Board a new idea: “Why don’t we do something for our Members that is different than Conference. Something in nature where they can learn and bond and relax together. It can be a Member’s Retreat where we all camp together”. A lot of people would have come up with the idea and then asked other people to do the work. Not Bethrah. She immediately found appropriate locations, developed a budget, figured out all of the things that would go into a wonderful camp experience and then made it happen. To say it has been a success is a gross understatement. Camp APP has quickly become a must-attend event, and once again it is due to the vision, leadership, and hard work of Bethrah Szumski.
Along with Bethrah, I’d like to send a special thank you to all of the women who make the piercing community a better place. The APP and the piercing industry as a whole are benefactors of your leadership, intelligence, strength, wit, and talent.
