President's Comments
By: Jim Miller

I trust that all of you who made it to Madison for the 83rd Annual Meeting have made it safely back to your respective States. The Committees that pulled together this year's conference did another great job. Thank you to all of you who contributed to this conference.

Speaking of contributing - Committee Members and Executive Board Members will be meeting in July at CSWEA-CSX'10 (July 15&16 at the Kalahari Resort) to discuss ways to improve the Association and will also likely be attacking the budgetary issues facing the CSWEA. This is your opportunity to help improve your association - so if you have concerns or areas where you think we can improve - or maintain the level of service you receive from the Association - please pass them along to your respective State Section representatives or one of the Executive Board Members for further discussion at this year's CSX. Thanks also to Eric Lecuyer (and family) for the fine job at this conference and throughout the year.

I mentioned very briefly at the Annual Banquet that I was looking for ways to expand and improve efforts to bring more meaningful exchange for our Operations, Maintenance, Collection, Lab, Engineers and Young Professionals. I am serious about finding better ways to get more people involved in the organization. I believe one of the ways is to provide educational opportunities to help improve our performance in those areas. We need to make certain that we have at the State and Association level - conferences and workshops that can benefit our members existing and prospective members. Working with a number of engineering firms - I have heard that there isn't much to offer to new engineers that will help them with their duties and career. I hear similar comments from Operations, Maintenance, Collection and Lab folks as well. We have had a number of very informative workshops like the Digester Foaming topics this spring. That is why I am seeking to continue that Ad Hoc Committee another year to continue to find ways to assist our members with those issues. I would encourage all of you to think of ways that we can provide timely and meaningful information to our members. Having made my way up the ladder from small WWTP's to larger ones and then crossing over to the consulting side - there are a lot of people that are not involved with CSWEA (WEF) that should be. We need to find ways to get those nom-involved folks interested in our association.

I know the next year will go extremely fast. It seems like just a month ago I was elected as 2nd Vice President. Now I have moved into the office that so many talented and influential people have held over the years. I do feel quite humbled to be able to represent you and this organization for the coming year. I will try to make a difference and take your thoughts and suggestions seriously when it comes to improving our organization.

The 2011 Annual Conference will be in Maple Grove MN - on the northwest corner of the twin cities. I urge you to start making plans to attend and also encourage you to invite some of your co-workers and neighboring facilities to send members to the conference.