President's Message 5.17.2017

Good Day:

Its mid May and that means we are only a few weeks away from the Southeast Regional Conference, The Southeast Regional Conference is being held here in Charlotte the 8th, 9th and 10th of June. The main conference takes place at the Charlotte convention center, with the host hotel being the New Embassy Suites hotel across from the Nascar Hall of Fame.

The SERC has been a collaborative effort between the state Chapters of South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina. This conference has morphed from an Idea formed a year ago into the extraordinary event that it is. The idea behind this conference is to create collaboration amongst the Southeastern states.

Keynote speakers include Kona Gray, ASLA who will give his presentation on Thursday, and David Rubin ASLA, will be speaking on Friday morning. Friday afternoon’s schedule includes the SERC awards Ceremony which will be presented by ASLA President Vaughn Rinner FASLA.

Saturday’s schedule includes a panel discussion titled Implementation & Impacts of the Atlanta Beltline,Cross-Charlotte Trail, and the Swamp Rabbit Trail. The panel consist of Paul Morris FASLA, Michael Kirschman,& Blake Sanders ASLA, which will be moderated by Beth Poovey, ASLA of Landdesign,

There will be several tours and a walking sketch tour. We will be dedicating large blocks of time to our Annual Sponsors and other vendors. In fact we will be having happy hour on Thursday with the vendors in the Expo Hall. The vendors will only be available Thursday and Friday while the conference is being held at the convention center, fortunately the convention center is big enough for some large displays, something the playground manufactures will take advantage of.  

The conference is NCASLA’s biggest fund raiser and in order to support the ongoing operations of our Chapter it is imperative that we have a really strong attendance from the Landscape architecture community. Please consider attending at least one day of the conference if possible, the content of the presentations offer something for everyone.

Landscape Architecture month is now behind us, If you had the chance to check out the instagram posts from the different ASLA chapters you got to see the variety of work landscape architects have been involved with throughout the world. NC ASLA posted on April 4th, We posted around 12 projects from around the state, all very representative of the practice here in NC.

On April 5th NC ASLA held its legislative breakfast, At the breakfast in attendance were over 15 landscape architects and about the same in legislators or their representatives, We debuted the short video LAndscape Architects Change the World, produced by Griffin Wing Productions.

I think it was a very well produced video with Great content from Susan Hatchell FASLA and Kofi Boone ASLA.

National Advocacy Day was held on April 27th, Four of us from the NC Chapter attended. Emily Blackwell ASLA, Pres Elect, Keith Downing ASLA, Past President and Wendy Miller FASLA VP of professional practice and Myself. We were advocating for the continuation of Three major funding sources which are essential to our practice: Permanent authorization of the LWCF. Tee continuation of TIGER Grants and the Clean Water and Drinking water revolving fund. The four of us VIsited Sen Burr’s Office first, since Senator Burris cosponsoring the permanent authorization of the LWCF, it was an easy sell, Not so much with Senator Tillis. After the meeting with Sen. Tillis’ Aids we split up, Emily and Wendy going to see their Representatives while Keith and I talked to ours plus Rep. David Price Hon. ASLA.  As we talked to the Representative’s Aids, it seem everyone was in favor of supporting these funding sources, but depending on who you talked to the concern was oversight and funding lengths. All in All it was a very fun and hectic day as we Marched to the Hill in support of the issues ASLA felt were critical to support in this administration.

Emily and I attended the Chapter President's Council meeting on the 28 and 29th, Here we talk with other Chapter leaders on how they operate and manage their chapters. If you want to enrich your career as a landscape architect, Get involved with your local chapter and join the executive committee, in fact the call for nominations for the following positions

President Elect (3yr Commitment) includes Pres, and Past President years
Secretary (2 yr Commitment)
Trustee (3 yr Commitment)
Legislative Affairs (2 yr Commitment)
Coastal Section Chair (2 yr Commitment)
Mountain Section Chair (2 yr Commitment)

If you're interested in getting involved please let an executive committee member know or let us know by clicking here.  You won't regret it.

We will need some volunteers to help with the Conference, if interested in helping out please let myself or Emily know. Hope to see you in June.

Mike