President's Message

Thursday, September 14, 2023

Hello!

Thank you for electing me as your President for the 2023-2024 term. It will be my honor to serve! When Gary Patrick persuaded me to join CSI, he encouraged me to join a committee stating this would be the best member benefit. I joined the Membership committee, and the rest is history.

Boy, was he right; I have made so many friends, both personal and professional, who have guided me along the way. I encourage everyone to volunteer and receive that same benefit!

“The CSI-MSP chapter is a network of dedicated building professionals striving to ensure construction projects are delivered with industry accepted standards, specifications, and materials.” This purpose statement developed in our strategic planning is a reminder that CSI is a great home for all in the construction industry, and I am proud to be a part of it!

Over the next year we have a few items we will need help with from our membership:

• Bylaw changes – We will be sending out revisions to the bylaws for membership review before voted on for approval. Please keep an eye out for the email and provide feedback.
• Programs Committee leadership – Chris Anderson has led the Programs committee for a long time with incredible success, but eventually all good things end. Although, before Chris can move on, we need to find his replacement and make them comfortable over the next year or so. Please let us know if you or someone you know would be interested. If you do not want to lead but want to be part of this committee, do not hesitate to volunteer- we are looking! Thank you, Chris, and all other committee members for your hard work! This job is especially important in our organization and is not easy!
• Programs package – We will be instituting a programs package over the next few months. This will allow you to purchase a block of programs at once instead of signing up for each program individually. Be on the lookout and we encourage everyone to sign up!
• Board Member positions – We are looking for two new board members for next year. Our hope is we can recruit two Architects or Specifiers or combination thereof. We feel this would give more balance to our chapter from a leadership position.
• Historical items – We have four to five boxes of photos from programs and events, award nominations, strategic planning documents and much more. With no official office these have passed from President to President. I would love to find 4 to 5 volunteers to help us digitalize this and see if we cannot get it on the website for everyone to view. There is a lot of history here and we do not want to see it get damaged or lost down the road! I am sure those who have been in membership for twenty plus years would love to stroll down memory lane. Please let us know if you are interested.
• Specifiers breakfast and Happy hours - After a long pause the Specifier breakfast meetings have resumed and happy hour gatherings are in the offering as well. These meetings are only for Architects, Specifiers and Engineers. No Product reps (sorry!). We would love to see these grow, so we encourage those to participate!

The National convention is coming to the Twin Cities October 4th -6th. Please check your inbox from Institute for registration. There will be lots of educational opportunities available!

Over the course of the last few years, we undertook a deeper look into our chapter and developed strategic initiatives. We found areas needing improvement, but with our limited volunteer capacity we will tackle a few at a time.

First, we must balance the budget. Last year’s signing of the affiliation agreement with Institute left us with shortfalls from previous years. Thanks to our sponsors and a handful of cost cutting methods we are addressing these issues, but financially, additional volunteers help us most right now so we do not have to outsource as much to Jaffe Management.

Secondly, we need to strengthen our numbers in the committees, especially in the programs committee. Educational programs are a key offering to our membership!

Third, we need to enhance benefits to each one of membership classes, hence why we restarted the specifiers breakfast. We welcome all suggestions for improving benefits. This is something we will be working on over the course of the year.

I would also like to thank all our volunteers for their time! Your service is invaluable and much appreciated.

I look forward to serving you while also helping expand the CSI forum for research and education to all our partners. Please do not hesitate to reach out should you have any questions.

Thanks for your time!

Pat Oneal, CSI