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| President's Letter |
| IFMA Sacramento’s 20th Year will be its Best Year Yet!
It is my honor to serve as President of the Sacramento Valley chapter of IFMA. My participation in IFMA has been a wonderful and rewarding journey. I would like to share a little of that journey with you. I first joined IFMA in 1997 fresh out of college as a very “green” sales representative. My new boss told to join IFMA because Facilities Managers buy office furniture. How right she was! Not only did I become a member, I got involved. I joined the Special Events committee and helped organize the golf tournament. Later I had the pleasure of serving as the committee chair and was voted “Associate of the Year” in 1999. 1999 was also the year I attended my first World Workplace in Los Angeles. This year I will be attending my 6th WWP in Dallas! A few years later I was elected to the board as Treasurer, then Vice President, and now President. During these years there have been many changes in our chapter. We have seen tremendous membership growth and increased levels of participation. In early 2008 we passed 200 members and are now a large chapter in IFMA. When once we had to virtually beg people to serve on committees they are now fully staffed and through succession planning our committee chairs are ready to be the board members of the future. We are offering more programs for IFMA Continuing Education Units (CEU’s) than ever before and we plan our monthly programs to reflect the FM core competencies. Thanks to our chapter sponsored study groups and educational programs we have one of the highest percentages of CFM’s and FMP’s in the nation. I am proud to say I took advantage of IFMA’s educational programs and achieved my Facility Management Professional (FMP) designation in July. Our chapter has also provided fantastic networking opportunities at our special events. In January we celebrated our chapter’s 20th anniversary! We had a wonderful party at the Embassy suites that over 100 people attended including special guest Pam Grey and her husband Al. Some of you may remember Pam as our long time Chapter Administrator in the early days. Please check out our photo archive on ifmasac.org for some pictures of the event. Our golf tournament in April sold out for the first time ever and continues to generate the revenue that helps support us the rest of the year. World Workplace 2007 in New Orleans was another success story. Almost 50 of our members travelled to New Orleans to attend IFMA’s international conference and exposition. In 2007 we were the runners up for Small Chapter of the Year, but I have every confidence we will win the award this year at WWP 2008 in Dallas. That brings me to our newest event, the California Sustainability Mayday, which was held in May at the Hyatt. Mayday was unique in that it was the first regional event we have ever planned and it brought IFMA Sacramento to the forefront of the sustainability movement. The Mayday was the brainchild of Cyndi Smith, our immediate past President, and Wayne Whitzell, our new Chapter Vice President. Cyndi and Wayne brought nationally recognized speakers from as far away as Australia and planned this day long “green” operations event with the support of the USGBC, IIDA Sacramento, AIA Sacramento, and four other Northern California IFMA chapters. The event was filmed and you can view some of the speakers at ifmasac.org. Stay tuned for the DVD that will be available soon. Also on the “green” front, our chapter’s leaders have helped develop the new Green Operations Certificate program at Sacramento State. Our own Kit Tuveson and Cyndi Smith are instructors. If you are reading this letter then you are visiting our new web site. We are so proud of all the new and expanded sections it contains. Check out the photo and event archives, FM blog, and Green Zone. Most importantly please visit the links to our Annual Sponsors. We couldn’t do what we do without their support and they are truly the best FM vendors in the market! In closing, I feel so honored to have been a part of IFMA Sacramento for the last 11 years. I have made some life long friends here and IFMA has enriched my life both professionally and personally. My plans as President are to simply continue providing the best educational programs and networking opportunities to our members, increase member participation, and to advance the field of Facilities Management in the greater Sacramento region. Please contact me to let me know how we can better serve you. Thank you for your participation and I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting. Sincerely, Christian Flanders, FMP |
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