President's Letter, Fall 2009
Dear Potomac Chapter ASLA Members:
I am pleased to serve as your President for the 2009-2010 year. We are kicking off the year with a new website providing more information and better communication to our members. The website has a page dedicated for our members to share information, showcase places of interest to our profession and highlight your work.. Please visit the Places and Ideas page. New entries are posted frequently. www.potomacasla.org. Special thank you to Karen Kumm, Past President in leading this effort along with Jeanette Ankoma-Sey and Melissa Rainer.
As we approach the 2010 Annual Meeting, we have an exciting year co-hosting the ASLA Awards Banquet with the Maryland Chapter in December and hosting the NLAM event in April, while setting up office visits/tours through the year. The Time and Space publication and the first Edward Ballard Scholarship Award will be presented in 2010. The 2010 Planning Committee will be meeting later this fall and will establish the subcommittees needed to host the 2010 Annual Meeting. Stay tuned.
Our Executive Committee Board (ExComm) is a dedicated group who have put in countless volunteer hours over the past several years. Thank you ExComm for all of your hard work in the past years and thank you in advance for an action-packed year that lies ahead of us. We also welcome several new members, Sarah Couchman with Lardner/Klein, who is serving as our Secretary and Saundra Nam and Nicholas Columbo, who are serving as our Student Members.
The past year was tough for our profession due to the recession and the untimely loss of several of our members, Bob Good and Mark Papa. We can only hope that the remaining of 2009 and upcoming year 2010 will provide us with better economic conditions and good health.
We look forward to hearing from you and welcome your involvement in our upcoming events.
Sincerely,
Lisa Siri
President Potomac Chapter ASLA
Dear Chapter Members:
I am pleased to announce our new officers for this year’s Executive Committee, 2009-2010.
Bethany Carton, President –Elect
Lisa Siri, In coming President
Karen Kumm Morris, Past President
Ron Kagawa, Trustee
Sarah Couchman, Secretary
Mark Mastalerz, Treasurer
Jeanette Ankoma-Sey, Member At Large
Adele Ashkar, Member At Large
Paul Kelsch, Member At Large
Many of the officers have served last year and will carry over their knowledge of how the Chapter operates to help things running smoothly. A special thanks is owned to these members who continue to serve our Chapter.
2010 Annual Meeting: This year we are preparing to host our Annual Meeting here in Washington next September. Many of you will have the opportunity to run field sessions, give tours and help out in many other ways. The 2010 Planning Committee is being formally organized this September. Please contact me if you wish to join this group. Karen.kumm@mncppc-mc.org . We plan to have a lot of fun while we recommend tours, create a restaurant guide around the Convention Center, a National Mall walking tour guide, and many other activities. More information will be sent out after the Chicago Annual Meeting.
New Website: We are delighted to launch our new website offering you greater access to information that is useful, relevant and exciting. The new format highlights our award winning projects and firms, our sponsors, and upcoming events that you should know about. It features a new page called Places and Ideas where members can post interesting ideas, showcase their work, and see new places visited by our globe trotting members. We hope that you will visit Place and Ideas frequently to see what is posted every month.
You will continue to find our Calendar of Events, Chapter News, Jobs Listings and other ASLA documents and web links to help you find useful information about the profession and related fields. Please take a moment to pursue the new site and become familiar with where information is now located.
Please continue to send us information for the Calendar of Events and the new Places and Ideas page. Send Calendar items and Places and Ideas submissions to our info@potomacasla.org . Go to Places and Ideas/ How to submit for correct image file size and required information.
I hope to see many of you at ASLA’s Annual Meeting in Chicago. It has been a pleasure serving as your president this year. I look forward to working with many of you on the 2010 Planning Committee. After this year's annual meeting, Lisa Siri becomes our new President.
Best Regards,
Karen Kumm Morris, Past President
President's Letter, Fall 2008/2009
Dear Chapter Members:
The following new Chapter Executive Committee members for 2008-2009 are honored to serve you:
Past-President - Ron Kagawa
President - Karen Kumm Morris
President-Elect - Lisa Siri
Trustee - Faye Harwell
Secretary - Bethany Carton
Treasurer - Mark Mastalerz
Members At-Large
Adele Ashkar
Melissa Rainer
Jeanette Ankoma-Sey
This is an exciting and important year.
Our Chapter will continue to offer professional and educations programs designed to serve your interests.
- Interested in urban design? We showed Jon Gehl's film “Cities for People” in September.
- Interested in seeing other firm's work? There are several walking tours planned in the spring to National Harbor and other new projects in the Washington DC area in addition to the popular office “Happy Hour” events.
- In November, the award submissions will be reviewed and the award's banquet held on December 9th at the new Hilton in Baltimore with the Maryland Chapter.
Please contact us with your ideas on potential programs and news to pass on. We will continue to email you every month with upcoming events and information.
In 2010, the ASLA Annual Meeting will be held in Washington, D.C. The Chapter has two initiatives that you may wish to join.
- The Chapter is creating a chronicle of members called the Time-Space Project, a recording of people, history and places that represent past, present and future of the Potomac Chapter that will be published as a book. Last spring, our Brookside Garden forum featured the Pioneers of our Chapter. This spring, current members will showcase their firm's most recent and exciting work. If you are interested in the Time-Space project, please contact Ron Kagawa or Adele Ashkar.
- The Chapter will be working closely with the ASLA national office to help provide local support for the Annual Meeting. This will include helping to identify interesting field sessions, developing walking tours, and handouts on local events and other materials. Please consider joining the 2010 Meeting Planning Committee by contacting me.
Finally, with the economy and jobs on everyone's mind, consider the Chapter as an important job network for you. Please contact me with job opportunities for posting.
The 2008-2009 programs offer interesting and exciting events. I hope to see you in this coming year.
Karen Kumm Morris,
President, Potomac Chapter ASLA