By Jeff Miller
Greetings from your CSIA Board of Directors! Time continues to fly and, by the time you get this newsletter, we will be just a few weeks from the CSIA Executive Conference. I am excited to travel to the conference again this year as it promises to be another great one with lots of interesting speakers and topics to help you improve your business. I hope you are considering attending this year as you are sure to gain knowledge and develop relationships with peers across the globe. CSIA Treasurer Luigi de Bernardini and I have been working closely with CSIA CEO Jose Rivera as we continue to on board Kellen, CSIA’s new association management company (AMC). They are doing a great job learning about us and preparing for the conference. Please help them to feel welcome at the event as they will be serving us in this capacity for the first time.
The three of us also traveled to Chicago for an executive board meeting with the AMC team at the beginning of February in the Kellen office. This was a great meeting, and Luigi and I also got to “virtually” meet CSIA’s new industry director, Lisa Richter, and talk through some history of CSIA. The day we were in the office there was an ice storm, so Lisa was unable to join us in person, but we did learn that Lisa has some great experience, and we are excited to have her on board. You will get to meet her at the conference, so please help her to feel welcome as well.
The Leadership Development Committee has been working hard to identify and contact potential board candidates to be presented as a slate to membership at the annual business meeting. We have been getting very favorable responses and we are excited about the slate we will be presenting. The full board will be presented with the slate of candidates initially, and then these will go before the membership for a vote. Please make plans to attend the annual business meeting so you can learn more about these candidates.
I really want to encourage you to consider coming to the CSIA Executive Conference in Asheville, N.C., and bring along some of your key folks. It is a beautiful location, and there are tracks that are sure to be valuable to yourself as well as your staff, including your marketing team.
I also encourage you to volunteer within the organization on a committee or task force. This is really the lifeblood of our organization and how it was built. It is a guarantee that you will get back much more than you give. As one of our founders, Charlie Bergman, would say “Give 1 idea and get 10 in return.”
I, and the Board of Directors, look forward to seeing you very soon at the conference. Travel safe and see you soon!
CSIA Board Chair Jeff Miller is the director of project management for Interstate Control Systems in Sioux Center, Iowa.