By Mel Cea, CSI, 2007-2008 Chapter President

May 2008

This was an exciting year for the chapter. We entered this year with much anticipation and promise. Late in the summer of 2007, the Board held a planning meeting at Ingersoll- Rand facilities and created a great road map for this year’s programs.

The board welcomed new members who aggressively took the chairmanship of the program.

We started with a great program at the Carpenter’s Union Training Center on flooring. This was followed by presentation on lighting, then life-safety issues.

As the year went on, the path of the chapter experienced some bumps and thru the persistence of the board we proceeded on the course charted previously.

At this time the board started to look to the future and planned how to be more efficient, encourage more participation, and continue with our programs. There were times when, due to work load, attendance in the Board did not meet required quorum. One shining light on this was the emergence of a future President-Elect (2009-2010) of the chapter. With her outstanding performance as secretary, Susan Johnson was a clear choice as the in-coming President-Elect.

Other members that showed outstanding service to the chapter are Fred Burr, Chuck Cuccia, and John O’Neil. Other members will be recognized at the award banquet.

So, this year was a good year for the Chapter. We suffered thru the longest and snowiest winter I ever experienced. The state of the economy took a big hit on our membership resulting on some members changing jobs. We are hoping that next year brings great promise.

I look back on this year with great pride. I look around and there are so many people that work so hard to make this year a great year. With people like Don Russell, Kristy, Michelle and others, how can one not succeed? Thank you all for a great year

Let us all have great effort for the coming year.