Goals for 2020-2021 ACEC/MW Presidency

• By: Pedro Capestany, PE
• On: 06/12/2020 11:47:13
• In: ACEC/MW Board Chair's Comments
• Comments: 0

First, let me thank Linda and the entire National Board for all of their support and for what they do to promote and advocate for our engineering profession. Linda, you are truly recognized as one the go-to leaders in our industry, and I look forward to working with you this year. Thank you for the association's position of solidarity and inclusion. At Metropolitan Washington we are committed to following and modeling these ideals. 

Second, I want to thank Rizwan for your leadership this past year and for all that you have done over the many years as a member of the Board and Committee Chair. It has been a pleasure working with you during your Presidency. We made a lot of great advances for the association, and I look forward to continuing the hard work you started. We have a small token of our appreciation to present to you for your dedication and leadership with ACEC/MW. I hope you will display it proudly in your office. We also have a gift for you to take your wife out to dinner once we are back to normal and going to and eating in a restaurant is again a part of our lives.

The 2020-2021 year is definitely going to be a challenge for us. There are still several unknowns, but the Board has been meeting and we have set up plans and contingencies to meet these challenges. While we plan for the worst, I also look at this time as an opportunity for us to find new ways of doing business, such as our on-line meetings, and the virtual training and seminars we are planning, which we have not done before. We have the tools to continue to be productive and to provide our membership with the service they have come to expect.

Overall, our focus will be to continue to provide the highest service to our members, our clients and to continue to improve and not rest on our past performance.

I want us to be the “go to” resource for member firms, our clients and elected officials for issues that impact our industry, and for them to seek counsel and guidance from us and for us to be a trusted partner with them to advance the work we do. I am excited to work with our new Board and our committees to make the 2020-2021-member year a great year. They are a great group of dedicated professionals to our association and to our industry. 
Some of the key initiatives we will be focusing on this year include:

1. Develop a new strategic plan – we will build off the plan recently developed by National
   • We will plan to have a strategic planning retreat with our Board of Directors and Committee Chairs and Vice Chairs in the next few months to begin this process
   • Diversity and inclusion of our membership, committees and BOD will be key emphasis
2. Update and revise our Bylaws to reflect the current state of our organization, industry, and the “new normal” that is now part of our reality
3. Scholarship – continue to build the endowment and establish a deadline for awarding our 1^st scholarships to young professionals who are the future of our industry
   • We are planning a golf outing to raise funds for our scholarship. Look for opportunities to be part of the initial task force and scholarship committee 
4. Advocacy – including setting the groundwork to establish a local DC PAC
5. Programs – continue to offer vibrant virtual programs
6. Plan for an ACEC/MW Conference
7. Committees are the life blood of our association. I want to ensure the committees are fully integrated into our budgeting and execution of our services – Tie work to budget expectations 
8. Increase Non-dues revenue through on-line training, business seminars, and social outings
9. Expand our membership
10. New committee structure – continue the process to add new committees
    • Small business
    • Young professionals
    • Technology
    • Utilities
    • Scholarship
11. Continue to build and enhance our relationship with our sister associations; ACEC/MD and ACEC/VA

To close out, I again want to thank all of the sponsors of today's meeting. I also want to remind everyone of the events that we have planned for June and hope that everyone can join with us:

• June 17^th is our Joint Meeting with SAME DC and CMAA – The topic is infrastructure-based recovery
• June 18^th is our Joint Meeting with ACEC/VA and a presentation on the I-81 Corridor Improvement Plan Update
• June 24^th is our Wine Down Wednesday – This is our virtual happy hour to reconnect with our members. It's a free event, but you do need to register

And now our annual business meeting is adjourned. Have a wonder rest of your day. Stay safe and healthy.