Greetings! I’m truly honored and humbled to be writing my first message to the State membership and I’m renewed and refreshed from one of the best Great Lakes Expos our Chapter has ever had! Great fellowship, professionalism, learning experiences, and of course attendance. I truly appreciate seeing so many familiar faces each year while at the same time seeing more and more new faces as our Chapter grows with new people who bring their own unique experiences, diversities, challenges, solutions, and personal perspectives to share. Each one of our members brings an immense amount of value to the Chapter to make it as successful as it is today. Thank you for all you do and thank you for the honor to serve you over the next year.
Our Chapter is in good hands and we are blessed with energetic and engaged Branch Leaders coupled with a Chapter Executive Committee who have built so many programs and opportunities for networking, training, exchanging ideas and professional growth.
There are some really exciting things coming our way for the Michigan Chapter that I’m looking forward to assist in ushering forward. Over just the last few years, our Young Professionals group have really embraced their roles in reaching out to our next generation of Public Works professionals and have developed a lot of fun and informative gatherings. These events build extremely important relationship bonds across many different sectors that serve our communities from material and equipment manufacturers and suppliers, vendors, engineers, consultants, supervisors and of course Public Works Directors. These relationships are fruitful in so many ways.
Our next step will be to cultivate interest in our field through engaging the next generation through Student Chapters while still in school and to reach even further into middle and high schools with information about careers in Public Works. Our passions to serve can be contagious and together we can show how rewarding a career in Public Works is and can be.
I look forward to working with our Executive Committee and all of our wonderful members in sharing the benefits of APWA membership with others through many upcoming events this fall either at the Michigan Public Service Institute (MPSI), a Detroit Tigers Game, MSU/UofM Football Game, Snow Plow Operator Training (SPOT), Snowplow Roadeo, Roads Scholar Program, or any Branch Event. Please see our events calendar and invite anyone who would benefit from these awesome events to come join us!
