January 2013

President's Letter

After many years of record levels of business, we are all adapting to the new norm and looking at new and innovative ways to make our services fresh and add value to our clients and projects. As such, your professional association must also learn to adapt and find ways to become relevant to you, our members. I want to use this update as an opportunity to share some exciting new initiatives we will be focusing on this year. Our Executive Committee recently had a planning meeting and I could not be more pleased with the results. Here are some of the highlights:

We went through all of the core areas of our strategic plan and made significant updates to each area with very measurable objectives for each. Some items for you to be aware of include:

a. We will be rolling out new online CEC opportunities for our members that compliment the training offered at the annual conference.

b. We will be redoubling our advocacy efforts by continuing to be proactive, ensuring our license status is protected, but also that we support specific issues including reducing barriers for LA’s to work on water resource issues.

c. The conference committee is well on their way to building a 2013 meeting at the historic Vinoy Resort in St. Petersburg that will address the comments you shared in the conference survey. Expect the 2013 conference and expo to be bigger and better than ever.

d. Starting this January, we will be launching the first issue of our new quarterly magazine, which will be distributed to more than 3,000 members and vendors throughout the state.

e. We will be looking to recruit two people to run for each and every leadership position. I am 100 percent focused on getting more professionals connected to and involved with our association. Volunteers are the lifeblood of our organization and we cannot continue to succeed without your active involvement.

This brings me to my most important request. As the economy continues to improve, we must focus on growing our membership. I’m asking each and every one of you to consider inviting someone to be a member of FLASLA. They could be a co-worker, a peer or a vendor. Take a moment today and make the request. Of course, we are here to help, as well, so send us any leads that you have and our staff would be happy to follow up.

As always, thank you for your support of FLASLA. Let's make 2013 our comeback year!