May Chapter Meeting & Awards Banquet

Click here to view photos from the Awards Banquet

On Monday, March 14th, our chapter celebrated its FY ’07 accomplishments at our annual Awards Banquet. As part of the evening’s festivities we heard from our outgoing chapter president, Marthe Brock, CSI, CCPR. Reprinted here for those members who could not attend the banquet, are her remarks:

Good evening!

Do you remember when you were a child and you said to your Mother, “I’m bored, the summer is so long and there’s nothing to do?”  I laugh when I think about saying that to my Mother because she always said to me, “Just wait Marthe; this too shall change”.

Wow, she could not have been more right!  This year flew by.  I can’t believe my term as Chapter President is almost over.  It has been one heck of a ride!  We have had our share of ups and downs this year.  I do not want to dwell on the negative but I would be remiss if I did not mention all the deaths our chapter suffered this year.  We lost 3 long term chapter members, including our founding Father: John C Anderson.  We also lost Rogers George and Terry Ryan.  In addition to that, two very dear chapter members lost parents this year, Nancy Gulliford’s mother, and Alana’s father died just last week.  As I was talking to Audrey Brucker today, she said it is the most deaths she can remember in one year.  I guess it’s a good thing my presidency is almost over; we may have no members left if I stayed on board. 

Seriously, we have had other challenges as well.  Mostly relating to budget, but I feel confident that we have addressed those issues and are moving forward with a solid plan.  As I have said on numerous occasions, we really need everyone’s involvement in our c hapter activities because our plate is very full.  In my opinion we have begun to rely too heavily on outside help, we really need to look inward for volunteers in the future.   I hope you will all consider being involved in one way or another. 

We have had some great success this year as well.  We had some excellent chapter meetings with large attendance numbers.  We have had some successful for profit education seminars, and have more on the horizon.  Thank you to Programs and Education for their hard work.  Another success is Certification, witnessed by the number of people who sat for the exam.  We had 4 people take the advanced exams and 48 take CDT.  I don’t have the final national numbers but I am guessing we are amongst the top chapters in the country, which is a distinction we have carried for several years.  Thank you to Phil Leonard and the Certification committee. 

Another national recognition that we received this year is the Outstanding Chapter Accommodation.  This is our eighth year in a row, and I am relieved we did it again.  I did not want to break the chain.  I am very pleased to be accepting that award at the national convention in Baltimore next month.  We are among a very small group of chapters who has been recognized for this award every year it has been offered.  Thank you to Matt Strand and all the Awards committee members for carrying that torch for us. 

I read through my speech last year and I am happy to say that we accomplished a lot of what we set out to do.  But of course there is so much more to be done.  Fortunately, the chapter is in very good hands with Jon [Rao Papke] and his board.

I would like to take this moment to acknowledge Joel Meyer for his hard work and dedication as chapter Treasurer for the last several years.  Joel is going off the board this year and I know we will miss him!  Thank you Joel for your commitment and service to the chapter. 

One of the items on my list of things to do this year was to help start the planning for our Chapter’s 50th anniversary.  Our official kick-off was the December chapter meeting.  We invited several long time chapter members to come and reminisce about the past and talk a little bit about the future.  I am sorry if you missed that meeting, it was a very special one.  The good news is you will have a chance to reminisce again because the basic plan is already in place.  We have scheduled our 50th anniversary party on May 17, 2008.  It will be held at the Reserve in Plymouth.  It will be a very special evening that will include honoring the recipients of the John C. Anderson and Peter A. Norum awards for 2008.  We will be honoring additional award recipients at the regular chapter meetings throughout the year.  More details will follow on that; the key is to mark May 17th down, as we celebrate with dinner, music and dancing the 50th anniversary of this amazing chapter. 

It has been a pleasure and an honor to serve as President.  I will always have a special place in my heart for this organization.  I may not be president anymore, but you will not be getting rid of me that easily!!  I plan to stick around for a long time. 

- Marthe Brock, CSI, CCPR

The following is what we heard from our incoming chapter president, Jon Rao Papke, RA, CSI, CCS, AIA:

Good Evening!

It is truly an honor and a privilege for me to represent you as our Chapter’s President for FY ’08. Let me start by saying thank you to all of you who make our Chapter what it is.

This year we lost a great friend to CSI, to our Chapter, and to many of the people in this room. I first met John Anderson at my very first job after graduation from the U of M, years before I ever heard of CSI. He impressed me as a very friendly, open and honest person. Over the years as I learned more of his history and got know him better personally, I was amazed at his many talents, his dedication to improving the construction industry, and all the things he had accomplished. And he did this with a fair amount of modesty.

I bring this up not just to honor John, but also to introduce the theme of my talk tonight: People. It’s the people that I have met through CSI that have had the biggest impact on my life, not the activities, programs and/or publications available through the Chapter and Institute.

When I finally joined CSI 22 years ago, I did so in response to a random flyer. I didn’t know anyone in the Chapter at that time; no one was encouraging me to join, touting all the great benefits that membership had to offer. I came to a few chapter meetings, and then I heard about the Specifier’s Breakfast. This was an informal breakfast discussion group held the first Wednesday of each month. It was a little intimidating at first, being a young architect and sitting with some of the most knowledgeable specifiers in town. Many of the members of that group are still active today. I learned a lot from that austere group in those early years of my membership. I believe it helped my career and certainly had an impact on my direction and professional goals. I got active on some committees, took and passed the CCS exam, and served on the Board a couple of times.

My personal story is only one example of how interaction with other members in this Chapter can help us grow individually. But members’ involvement can also affect more than a single individual. Tonight we have recognized many people that have given a great deal to our Chapter. And there are still many others that have helped the Chapter achieve many things this year. Some of those people will be up here next year receiving an award. These people make our Chapter a great organization.

In addition to the individual awards presented tonight, I was thrilled to learn that the Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter will be receiving the Outstanding Chapter Award for the 8th consecutive year, to be presented next month at the Institute Convention. This is due in large part to Matt Strand who has for most of those years doggedly gathered information from each of the committees’ yearly activities and filed the application with Institute. In addition, the Communication Committee will be receiving the Continuing Publication Award [for the specifics monthly newsletter], representing a huge effort by several chapter members.

So what do I see for the upcoming year? Mostly, a lot of the same, only better. Let me give you some highlights.

• The Program Committee, chaired by Ryan Hallesy and Christopher Perego, has done a good job providing a variety of topics, alternating the time of day between lunch time and evening, and the venues between the Minneapolis and St. Paul sides of the river. There is no perfect time and place that works for everyone, so this helps people who might not otherwise be able to attend, make at least some of the events. The committee is hard at work firming up program ideas for next year.

• The Education Committee, led by Nancy Gulliford and Jim Schnack, had a great turnout for the 2nd annual all day seminar covering material from the PRM called Construction Document Technology. The committee also presented several technical seminars this past year. They are already planning seminars for next fall along with the 3rd annual Construction Document Technology seminar – however it will be renamed to avoid confusion with Certification Committee’s workshops o ffered in the winter for CDT (Construction Docume nts Technologist).

• Although it’s too early to know how this year’s applicants did on their certification exams, there has been a decrease in people signing up for the advanced tests for CCS, CCPR and CCCA in the last few years. We need to focus a little more on promoting these programs.

• This year our Chapter turns 50 years old. A separate Anniversary Committee has been working on ideas for a great celebration. I’m not going to leak any of the planning on them, except to say that it will be in the Spring of 2008 and should be a great party. You don’t want to miss it. Look for more announcements in upcoming issues of the newsletter.

• One challenge we face is the Construction Showcase. Bruce Saline and his committee have done a heroic job organizing this event for the last two years, but attendance continues to dwindle. There is some evidence that product fairs are losing interest among younger people in the industry that look for their technical information in other forms, such as the internet. We will look hard at the most appropriate form for this event in the future. Bruce is already working on some ideas. I encourage you to contact him, or any of the Board members, if you have suggestions.

• I have one other challenge for us. Our Chapter Mission Statement is “To lead the construction industry through knowledge and education on the built environment.” In order to bring these programs to others outside our Chapter, we will need to increase our presence and reputation in the Construction/Design community at large. I’m asking the Communications Committee, and all the committees, to help with this effort. When we talk to others about a CSI event, they should recognize who we are and the value we can bring them, not ask “what’s CSI?”

So get involved, stay involved, and have fun. This is a great organization and an outstanding chapter. Let me just finish by saying again, thank you to all of you who make our Chapter what it is.

- Jon Rao Papke, RA, CSI, CCS, AIA