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ABA
Millionaires
Richard W. Malott1
Behavior Analysis Program
Department of Psychology
Western Michigan University
Shocking, a little
embarrassing, and a little gratifying (value confirming, which is
also embarrassing) but true: There are many millionaires in ABA. Maybe
not too exciting because, the American middle-class is now full of
millionaires. And, of course a million ain’t what it used to
be, but it’s still enough.
The majority of
America’s millionaires are just hard-working people who live
below their means, stay out of debt, and put the rest in retirement
savings. Their average age is 55 to 60. About 25% are professionals
and teachers like you and me. My guess is they had no intention of
becoming millionaires; they were just doing their jobs and one day
noticed it happened—the retirement fund, the personal saving,
and the home combined to equal more than one million. Also, my guess
is that the maturing Association for Behavior Analysis has quite a
few of those hard-working, everyday millionaires.
Of course a million
is sort of a metaphor; it doesn’t need to be a million, a few
hundred k is cool. The point is many of us will live the rest of our
lives in comfort and probable security and leave a significant estate
after we move on to that Skinner box in the sky. We may or may not
leave children behind. And if there are children, some of those children
may need a few extra dollars to keep it together. But many may not
need too much; you’ve already made your contribution to them
and set them on the road to their own success.
In any event,
there will be many people who really do need your help, people who
will continue working toward the goals we’ve all been working
toward all our lives—understanding and improving the human condition
through behavior analysis. Those people are the students studying
behavior analysis, the ones who will keep our field alive long after
we’ve gone. And many of those people will be more or less living
on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while they acquire the skills
of behavior analysis and will be burdened with big debts when they
graduate and set out to practice behavior analysis. Those young people
will need our encouragement to begin the study of behavior analysis
and to continue until they become professionals. A few of our dollars
will greatly increase their chances of success by helping with the
costs of grad school, attending ABA, and doing research.
As I have no children,
I’ve willed about half of my estate to WMU’s Behavior
Analysis Program student fund and the other half to ABA’s student
fund. I worked it out with WMU’s funding experts, then my attorney,
and then ABA. At this point my material benefits are a WMU VIP parking
sticker and invitations to WMU Alumni fund-raising banquets, the later
being so aversively boring and irritating I soon realized I’d
disinherit WMU if attending those banquets was a necessity for its
being a beneficiary. I haven’t gotten my act together to investigate
the many complex options of charitable giving, estate planning, immediate
tax benefits, increasing current income by nailing down the gift now,
charitable remainder annuity trusts, revocable trusts, and so forth.
But there are many specialists willing to help us charitable givers,
and maybe ABA even has access to this expertise. In the mean time
I did manage to get my will drawn up as a sort of place holder.
Bottom line, as
we dollar guys say: To maximize your contribution to behavior analysis,
consider including ABA in your will.
Look forward to seeing you at many ABAs to come.
