Message from the 2020 AIA Oregon President

Amy Vohs, AIA
AIA Oregon President
Senior Associate, DLR Group

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you’ve all had the opportunity to spend some holiday time with friends and family—or at least your favorite four-legged friend(s). I was able to read two books while my favorite four-legged friend snored on my lap. I call that a successful holiday.

I am very excited for this year as we welcome new section directors, a new secretary and new section directors-elect. We have been working on programs and communication plans as we address member comments and pursue new efforts to organize committee involvement. As we organize programs, we are focusing on three main areas: sustainability, government affairs through state and local advocacy and equity through design and practice. However, the overall focus connecting our efforts is planning for the future, or at least planning for what’s coming next.

Programs Overview:

You may have read in previous issue of Thursday at Three about the strategic planning efforts we started in fall 2019 and the four initiatives we are focusing on. The strategic planning process led to the idea of developing quarterly themes in 2020 to tie together many of our programs and events. Starting this spring, we will add a chapter-wide event featuring a live broadcast panel discussion and a presentation emphasizing the quarterly theme. 

As we complete our budget and plan events, we are also working to finalize the quarterly themes. At this point, we expect the themes will include:

• Policy and Advocacy

• Emerging Technologies

• People and Culture

• The Big Move (A focus on sustainability and a long-term vision. Design for Economy, Design for Energy, Design for Equitable Communities. Read more here.)

Our planning work over the next few weeks will solidify the events schedule, themes and 2020 budget.

Krista Philips, Chair of the Programs Committee and staff have been working to organize the calendar of events for the year based on committee program requests and national conferences. Here are a few events planned for 2020:

Quarter One

            Code Update Training
2020 Oregon Legislative Session

Quarter Two

            Resiliency – Business and Building Planning and Recovery Conference in Portland
            Homes Tour in Portland

Quarter Three:

            Golf Tournament
            Design Justice Panel Discussion
            Future Vision Conference

Quarter Four

            Sustainability Week
            Design Awards
            Legislative Advocacy Forum (in anticipation of 2021 legislative session)

These are just a few items on the program calendar for the year. There are lots of opportunities to get involved as we look for volunteers to help for any event. If you are interested, please contact Executive Vice President Curt Wilson, AIA at cwilson@aiaoregon.org.    

Steering Committee Callout:

At the holiday parties, we invited members to get involved in your local section Steering Committee to help plan local events. With new section directors and directors-elect, your input is valued to make each section active and locally relevant to members. Please check out the Leadership page on the AIA Oregon website to find out who your local section director is.

Communication:

Our website is constantly being updated with new information. Our goals for this year are to make our website much more user friendly and to add more content on committee work. We’ve recently updated the Resources page to show where you can borrow ARE study materials in each section for Emerging Professionals. You will start to notice other changes on the website over the next few months.

Statewide Programming:

We are excited to test out new strategies for disseminating programs statewide. This Friday’s webinar on the updates in the 2019 OSSC will be the first. So far, almost 200 attendees have signed up. We look forward to your feedback on how the webinar worked for you so we can better tune that process throughout the year. It is our intent to rotate locations where main presenters are located so everyone has the opportunity to attend in person.

I truly look forward to this coming year as we keep moving towards a more cohesive and inclusive state chapter. As always, if you have an idea on how to make AIA Oregon better, don’t hesitate to share.

Happy New Year!

Amy Vohs

Message from the AIA Oregon Executive Vice President

Curt Wilson, AIA
Executive Vice President

Happy New Year!

We added the Message From section to the Thursday at Three newsletter in the Fall to provide a venue for board and committee leaders to introduce themselves and provide you more information about what AIA Oregon is doing to improve the member experience.  Overall the review comments have been positive, and we’ll continue to provide messages from a variety of our members and partners in 2020. 

In these messages you’ve seen references to the re-organization from local chapters to a single state chapter, AIA Oregon.  You’ve read descriptions of what we are doing, or plan to do, and why.  This message is intended to address how you can get involved. 

The transition from four local chapters and state council to a single state chapter significantly reduced the number of volunteer members needed to serve on the local boards.  All combined, there were about 60 board positions prior to the reorganization.  In other words, about sixty members each year agreed to serve in a capacity to lead the local and state AIA activities.  Most of us have a strong sense of obligation and responsibility when we agree to serve on a board, so we had a lot of members doing something for AIA.   One of the reasons we reorganized to a single state chapter was to reduce from five boards to one board, and to reduce the number of our volunteer members required to lead the organization.  The current AIA Oregon board includes four Officers and seven Directors for a total size of eleven. 

This reorganization allows the other forty-nine people who were serving on our boards to dedicate their volunteer efforts towards things they are passionate about, as well as grow the profession.  The role of committees as groups of active members planning and doing our events was intended to replace the activities of the local boards. 

The existing committees of AIA Oregon and the local sections are confirming or developing their purpose statements and planning their events and programs for 2020.   Over the next several weeks, we’ll add more information about committees and their events to the website, and spotlight some of the committees in the Thursday at Three weekly newsletter.  We intend to provide more information about our committees at each of the sections by the Spring of this year.

AIA Oregon Committees

• Communications

• Emerging Professionals

• Committee on the Environment

• Equity, Diversity, Inclusion

• Fellows

• Small Firm Exchange

• Legislative Affairs Committee

• Committee on Local Affairs

• Membership

• Programs

As we start our second year of a single state chapter, the role of the chapter, the sections, and the committees are becoming more clear.  Each committee is established to support the goals and implement the strategic initiatives of the chapter through engaged participation from all sections.   

We are looking for more members to participate in our committees!   AIA Oregon will grow to a more relevant professional association through an active and engaged membership. Member engagement at AIA happens at the committee level.  If you would like to learn more, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Curt Wilson, AIA

AIA Oregon EVP/CEO

cwilson@aiaoregon.org

Message from the 2019 AIA Oregon President

Seth Anderson, AIA
2019 AIA Oregon President

Hello. My name is Seth Anderson and I am your 2019 AIA Oregon President. I have lived and worked in Bend, Oregon for 15 years. I moved from Idaho as a young professional looking to further my career and expand the project types I could work on and found that opportunity during the boom of the early 2000s. I maintained employment through the Great Recession and in 2012 decided I wanted to try my hand at being an owner of a firm. Around the same time, I was looking to expand my professional network and connect with other architects in the central Oregon community and beyond.

For that reason, I joined the AIA and immediately became an active member as a board member of AIA Southwestern Oregon Chapter and a delegate to the AIA Oregon Council. I served in those roles until 2014 when I was asked by Alene Davis, 2016 and 2017 AIA Oregon Council President, if I would be interested in serving as AIA Oregon Council President-Elect and help facilitate the transition to a single state chapter. Having been involved in most of the process, I was excited about the potential that a unified AIA in Oregon could provide, so I willingly accepted. And what a rewarding experience it has been!

From the beginning, the guiding principal behind the unification of our state was to provide all members in the state with equitable access to quality programming and other member services. The leaders from across the state that discussed, analyzed, planned, and eventually voted for a single state chapter knew that it would be a difficult reorganization, but in the long run this was the best way to ensure the future of AIA in Oregon and be able to improve on the great work already being done. 2019 has been a year of transition and major change – from the official merger and its related adjustments to Executive Vice President Robert Hoffman’s “retirement” and return to professional practice – but we’ve made great strides towards unification and the betterment of our organization.

I would like to share just a few of the successes we’ve had in 2019.

• The 2019 Oregon Design Conference was held at Salishan in April. More than 140 people attended a three-day event that included dynamic speakers on the current and future state of our profession.

• Curt Wilson was hired as interim Executive Vice President and had agreed to serve in this role into 2021. Curt has shown exceptional leadership and commitment to the organization and we are all better for it.

• Two strategic planning sessions were held identifying our strategic initiatives for our single state chapter and the implementation of Strategic Initiative Groups to implement and achieve those goals.

• Creation of the chapter-wide Programs committee to evaluate and make recommendations on the programming happening in our state.

• The AIA Oregon Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion held the Future Vision 2019 symposium in September to discuss topics about equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), their importance relative to the health of the industry, and develop tools necessary to promote equity in the profession.

• AIA Eugene recognized six of our building-sector partners with Craftsmanship Awards, acknowledging the work that the building industry does for our projects and our clients.

• At the AIA Portland Architecture Awards, a jury of architects from Montreal, Quebec selected 10 project awards; energy data collected from project submissions helped to determine two Architecture 2030 Awards; and the AIA Oregon Executive Committee selected 3 Professional Achievement Awards from those nominated.

• Continuation of programming, continuing education, and social activities statewide.

• Recruitment of new board members and committee chairs willing to serve our members.

• Our success in the 2019 Oregon Legislative Session included collaboration with our public sector partners to modernize the Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS) for procurement of architects and engineers on public-sector projects, alignment of the definition of Substantial Completion between contracts and legal standards, improvements to the Green Energy Technology (aka 1.5% for Renewal Energy) program, and creation of a state-wide safety-assessment program.

As the year comes to an end so does my term as president, and it’s time to pass the torch. I couldn’t be happier that the board has elected Amy Vohs to take the helm. Amy has been highly engaged in the AIA Oregon Council as Treasurer since 2016 and as a member of various AIA Portland committees. Amy also assisted with the transition to a single state chapter, helping to vet the financial benefit of the merger. Her clear vision for the future of our Chapter, organizational skills, and concern for our members, allied partners, and sponsors give me great confidence in her ability to continue the progress that we have made as an organization. Here’s to an amazing 2020!