It is a New and Humbling Time, it is a Grateful Time, it is a Sad time, it is a Scary Time and it is an Exciting Time.Greetings to you all, I am Tim Gibson and as of July 1, 2010, I am the President of IFMA Northwest Ohio Chapter. It is a new and humbling time for me as I look forward to serving you in this position.
We are all grateful and thankful for the past four years Erin Nowicki has served as Vice President then as President. We have made some new and exciting changes and Erin’s guiding hand can be traced though them all. Most of what you will see in this letter will be because Erin has worked so hard at getting things going and keeping things going in the right direction. Thank you for everything, Erin. For the record, Erin has accepted the responsibility as Secretary Treasurer and will not be far away.
The past year has seen us lose two key leaders on our Board. First we lost Paul Craun. To many of us, Paul was IFMA Northwest Ohio. He has been a Board member and a key leader from its inception. Paul did all this work for us traveling from Findlay. Paul has decided it is time for him to pursue other opportunities and challenges and he is truly being missed. We wish Paul all the best. The second key person we are missing is Bill Thomas. Bill served as Secretary Treasurer most recently, and in the past has worn many hats. Bill has decided that with the challenges he is facing with his new job, it is not possible for him to serve on the IFMA Northwest Ohio Board any longer. He too will be missed as a key leader with a wealth of knowledge in the Facility Management field. Thank you both for all your service and good luck in your new endeavors.
Anyone that watches the evening news, tries to meet a budget, or if we are lucky enough to have a job, get home on time, understands that these are scary times. We are feeling the same pressures and challenges at IFMA. We have just completed our annual strategic planning retreat and the pressures of time and restricted budgets came up in just about every topic. We, too, are trying to do more with less, and do our best to show value and give support where we can.
And yet these are exciting times. We have hired Chris Sekulski as our administrator and she has helped us in so many ways in the few months she has been on board. The strategic planning retreat gave us new focus and new opportunities to show value to our members and their employers. We are adding a few evening tours this year. These tours are in addition to our monthly luncheons and will give us an opportunity to gather afterwards at a local establishment for extended networking. We are adding another networking breakfast on the third Friday of the month starting September 17th. This will be at Café Marie, Route 25 across from Levis Commons. In addition, the monthly luncheons will be specifically structured toward the IFMA core competencies. We are also creating more committees trying to spread the work load in manageable pieces and creating more opportunity for others to get involved.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the board members who attended this retreat and encourage you to talk with any of them about our exciting future. They are Erin Nowicki, Joe Luzar, Joe Andrews, Glen Blohm, Abby Krause, Tim Gibson and our Executive staff Chris Sekulski.
More to come.
Tim Gibson CFM President, IFMA Northwest Ohio Chapter
