By Robert Chase, AIA
2013 Chapter President

At the beginning of each year, the Board of Directors gathers at an annual retreat to set goals and priorities to focus on throughout the coming year for our members.  Following are some of these areas of focus for 2013:

Continued public outreach / Marketing of the value of AIA Architects in our region:

Planning is already underway for our 2013 Architecture Festival coming this October.  Our first festival last year was a tremendous success, and it was unanimously agreed that the Chapter would repeat it again this year.  While last year’s event spanned 2-1/2 weeks, the Festival committee is condensing the 2013 event to 10 days, and combining it with a re-envisioned Design Awards program geared toward the general public.

We are pleased to be working with Comstock’s Business magazine this year as our Festival Media partner.

We continue to support activities like ACE Mentoring, the Sac Modern Home Tour, and have recently joined the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Focus on Emerging Professionals (EP)/Associates and Students:

In my Installation message this past January, I emphasized the critical importance of our younger generation of professionals. Our Emerging Professional group, led by Mike Novak, AIA, has held and is planning more events to bring value to our future leaders.  These include the Speed Mentoring evening at the chapter, that featured the participation of our State Architect, Chet Widom, FAIA and many other seasoned and mid-level architects.

The Chapter’s EP group is also collaborating with other groups such as the Young Leaders Group (YLG) from ULI—which includes like-minded young professionals in the real estate and development world.  These groups will be sharing valuable life experiences at events like the upcoming pub Crawl; summer open house BBQ; Soul of the City; Park(ing) Day; ARE seminars with Funkaar and a new study group meeting regularly at the MAARS building.  The EP group has also received a grant from the Morris Gee Scholarship Fund to buy new materials and to subsidize attendance at future events.  The key focus of this group is ‘adding value and fun’ to their members.

Advocacy:

We continue to increase our involvement in advocacy for important and relevant issues throughout our community.  Most recently (and with to kudos to Past-president Bruce Monighan, AIA who has been leading a community development working group with the City of Sacramento for several years now) Chapter leadership spoke at the Sacramento City Council in support of a ground-breaking new Planning and Development Code for the City, developed by staff with input from our chapter.

We also continue to be involved as member of Region Builders, a group who has made great strides in influencing positive planning and building policies in various cities in the region.

To expand our professional advocacy opportunities, as mentioned previously we have joined the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce, with the goal of being considered a ‘trusted advisor’.

As an enhancement to our Chapter’s identity and exposure in the community, Comstock’s Business Magazine featured several articles in the March issue recently, including an interview with me, your President, as well as a separate article featuring past Chapter President Monighan and other members from local design firms.  This was very good press for our Chapter.

Membership retention of Current Members/Growth of New Members:

In an effort to examine our relevance, particularly with regard to AIA National’s Re-Positioning Initiative, we recently conducted a survey to all of the licensed architects in our Chapter 17 county region—not just our members. We appreciate the many individuals that responded, and plan to use the results to help focus our events and activities in the coming year.  A membership task force has been formed to plan a special roundtable to address licensure, support of EP’s and member firms’ involvement with the AIA as well as develop a special “member’s only” event in the future.

Alternate Career Tracks:

Also in my Installation message, I indicated the importance of discussing and exploring alternate career paths for architects—given the significant impact the economy has had on our profession these last 5-6 years.  There are many opportunities for architects in roles other than the traditional architectural office scenario we have been accustomed to over the last century or more.  These include roles in teaching, government, politics, development, etc.

Please join us on Tuesday, May 14th at 5:30 at the Chapter gallery for a “Pathways Panel” event, where we will hear from and dialogue with members who have chosen alternate roles to apply their architectural training.

In closing, we see signs that the economy may be improving, but these signs still appear to be rather subtle to many.  All the more reason why the AIA, and our Chapter in particular, continue to work diligently to be relevant to our valued members in these changing times.  The Board, Chapter staff and I offer you a commitment to do so.