Ahhh….the Holiday Season is upon us. I’m sure everyone is wrapping up their shopping and getting ready for all of the parties where we get together with friends, family, co-workers, and peers to share in the merriment of the season. It is also a time for reflection on the past year and a peek forward to the coming year.

Now that the Sierra Chapter Board of Directors has had a chance to meet a handful of times, we have plotted the course for the coming year and have come up with some ideas to help “mix things up” and, most importantly, boost attendance at our monthly meetings. Several ideas have come to light during our discussions, including hosting an awards dinner to honor projects and firms that deserve recognition, continuing with last year’s addition of a luncheon meeting followed by golf in the spring, and encouraging firms to enlist their younger professionals to attend meetings on a regular basis. At the State level, ACEC-CA is also changing things up in 2015, separating Legislative Visit Day (March 25) and the Engineering Excellence Awards (January 15), putting together an informative blog called The Voice of ACEC California, and becoming more active on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In addition, ACEC-CA has launched its first annual YouTube contest to encourage high school students to submit a video on engineering by January 15, 2015. Details on the contest are on the ACEC-CA website at: www.acec-ca.org/doc.asp?id=2455.   Suffice it to say, ACEC-CA and the Sierra Chapter are working hard to keep up with our ever-changing business environment.

The Sierra Chapter Board of Directors encourage members to approach us and share ideas on how we can improve and how we can accomplish our goal of keeping things fresh and interesting at the chapter level. Please contact me or any of our Board members directly. After all, we are here to serve!

I hope that all of you have a wonderful holiday season and that you and your firms enjoy a fruitful and prosperous 2015.

Cheers,

Tom