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The Home Stretch
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By Randy
Wirtz
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“I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to help shape the future of this proud and long-running professional organization.”
By the time you are reading this, I will have less than two months left on my
term as president of CSWEA. This has been an extremely active year on a number
of fronts, and I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity to help shape the
future of this proud and longrunning professional organization.
This has been a
year of activity, planning, change, and improvement. As most of you are aware,
we’ve had three different executive directors within the last 10 months. That is
a significant amount of transition for any organization to handle, but I am
pleased to inform our members that CSWEA is as solid as ever and we are already
implementing improvements to our member communications, services, website, and
conferences and seminars. I hope you like the changes you’ve already seen with
the electronic newsletter and e-blasts, and these are just the beginning.
As I
stated in my first article last summer, my main focus was on two key issues –
Strategic Planning and Membership. Our strategic plan was last updated in 2003,
which is a full decade ago! All one needs to do is to think of the changes in
your work and personal lives over that time to understand how critical it was to
update this document. Doug Henrichsen has led the effort to update our strategic
plan and has done a great job. The strategic plan development/update process has
been put temporarily on hold while we continue to assess our core capabilities
and opportunities, but we fully expect to have the update complete within the
first half of 2013. Our goal is to have a plan that is both implementable and
measurable so that we can continue to improve.
Membership initiatives have also
been focused on at both the section level and the association level. We are
trying to attract more operations professionals to our conferences and seminars
by focusing these events on operations topics. Our vision is to recruit more
public sector members, which will help growth in all of the other membership
groups, including the consultants, manufacturers, and equipment representatives.
CSWEA Events
CSWEA has been extremely busy with event planning and hosting, and there is a
lot more to come. In February, we co-hosted another successful Midwest Industry
Expo at the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells. In addition to more than 80
exhibitors, the expo hosted several technical sessions/ presentations and the
1st Annual CSWEA Operations Seminar, which was attended by approximately 40
people. This seminar was focused on activated sludge settling and filamentous
identification and control strategies and included significant opportunity to
discuss strategies at different WWTPs. A summary of the seminar is included
elsewhere in this issue, and a big thanks to Troy Larson for chairing this
committee and leading the planning efforts.
Young Professional (YP) Leadership
Academy – Engaging our young professionals early in their career is important
for their own networking and experience, and also helps CSWEA to remain a
vibrant organization with a bright future. The 3rd Annual YP Leadership Academy
will be held on April 1, 2013 at the Monona Terrace in Madison, WI. This event
is focused on providing an excellent learning and training opportunity for our
younger members, as well as a technical tie-in to the next day’s Education
Seminar. There is a meet-and-greet after the Leadership Academy that will allow
our more seasoned professionals to engage and interact with our YPs. As a
special bonus, YPs attending both the Leadership Academy and the Education
Seminar get a significant registration fee discount.
Education Seminar – One of
CSWEA’s best-known and attended events is the Annual Education Seminar, which
will be held on April 2, 2013 at the Monona Terrace in Madison, WI. This year
marks our 18th annual event, and draws attendance from throughout the Midwest
because of the top-notch speakers and technical content. This year’s focus is on
biosolids management, stabilization, disposal, and resource recovery. Speakers
will cover new and emerging biosolids stabilization technologies, energy
recovery systems, nutrient management, and a host of other exciting
developments.
2013 Annual Conference – Our 86th Annual Conference will be held
May 14-17, 2013 at the Monona Terrace in Madison, WI. Please note that the
conference starts on Tuesday and ends on Friday this year, which is different
than the past few years. The Madison location for the annual conference has
traditionally been our best attended, and we expect that the 2013 conference
will be no exception. The local arrangements committee and technical program
committee are working hard to develop another outstanding conference that will
be educational and fun, as well as a great value to our members and other
attendees. The Monona Terrace is a world-class convention location and downtown
Madison is a short walk away. We are striving to provide improved networking and
value to all attendees, so please attend, sponsor, exhibit, and otherwise
support this excellent event.
In addition to the CSWEA events noted above, each
of the three state sections is hosting other technical events throughout the
spring and throughout the year. Please go to our website for information
(www.cswea. org/events).
A final note
The past year has seen its ups and downs without a doubt, but the organization
is as strong as it has ever been. I would sincerely like to thank our past
Executive Director, Eric Lecuyer, interim Executive Director Dan Lynch, and our
new Executive Director, Mohammed Haque. This position is very demanding and time
consuming, and I know the e-mails and calls never stop coming from all of the
sections, the executive committee, and our members. I have been especially
impressed with Mohammed and Amy Haque and their can-do attitude, not to mention
their information and management skills and savvy! They have quickly learned the
ropes and are improving CSWEA’s efficiencies on a daily basis.
In May, Patti
Craddock from the Minnesota section will take over the president’s position, and
Jim Huchel from the Illinois section will become the first vice president. Both
of these individuals have been committed to CSWEA for many years and will bring
consistent energy and great ideas to these positions. I look forward to seeing
them both in action!
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