Welcome to a new year from the Sierra Chapter Board of Directors. It is with much excitement and just a little trepidation that I have taken over from our outgoing Chapter President, Tom Sell. Tom leaves us with a strong vision for the future and I hope to build on his efforts. We also have a stellar Board of Directors that work tirelessly behind the scenes to serve ACEC’s goals. I was humbled to be asked to serve as a Board officer two years ago and I hope to build on all of our great past presidents’ effort. With my first column I thought I should lay out my goals as Chapter President for the next year.
My goals for this term include:
- Growth – We are always recruiting for our Chapter and I need your help identifying prospective members for both regular and affiliate (vendors and contractors) members. If you know of a potential candidate firm please refer them to myself or one of the other Board of Directors so we can connect.
- Participation – While we always receive a great turnout at our membership meetings, we would love to see some new faces. I would like to encourage every one of you to bring a colleague to a future meeting that has not been to ACEC before. We would especially like to see more young professionals attend. One of the best values we hear from our members are the networking opportunities at our events.
- Advocacy – One aspect of the Sierra Chapter that I have really enjoyed is our future young professionals support. We support young people in a variety of ways such as the Tim Flemming Scholarship for college civil engineering juniors/seniors at CSUS/UOP/UC Davis, multiple high school STEM/robotics program grants, and the CREATE high school scholarship. We plan to continue this support and look for other opportunities as well.
- Legislative Updates – One of the most important benefits of your ACEC membership is our legislative action staff that are working hard every day to ensure legislation at both the state and federal level are favorable to your firms and our industry. I plan to offer periodic updates in the newsletter to inform you of what is happening with our state staff.
- Transparency – I want to lead our Chapter with openness and keep you informed on issues in front of the Board. With that in mind, we always welcome visitors to our Board of Director meetings. However, beware, that is a sure-fire way to be asked to serve on the Board for a future term.
Please reach out to me if you would like to share your thoughts. We have some great speakers already lined up for our membership dinners and I hope to see you at our next dinner on September 20. There is one last challenge I want to make to you and that is Get Involved! We have a variety of ways you can participate such as our state committees, Board of Directors, etc. I think I can speak for many of our current and former Board members and say that my involvement with ACEC has been very rewarding.
-Erik
