If the temperatures in my weather app are any indication, summer is here. Hopefully you have some summer fun planned – maybe a ballgame or two, maybe your first vacation in over a year, maybe just getting back out to the patio with some friends. After last summer was essentially cancelled, I think I am more excited for this summer than any in my life (all those summer school breaks included).
Summer has always been the planning season for ISA St. Louis. We look back briefly at what we accomplished over the last program year and where we can improve going into the next. Halfway through my 2-year term, I’d like to remind you all the goals set out about a year ago and give you updates:
- We will be working on updating our Bylaws to be in lock-step with the Society – Complete! We had our new Bylaws ratified back in November and created a living “Operating Document” that allows us more flexibility in how we manage the day-to-day activities of the Section.
• We will continue to identify and grow new Section Leaders – Ongoing. We have welcomed Hycintia and Andre’ to the Board over the last year and want to continue to grow our next generation of leaders. If anyone out there is interested, give me a call, send me an email, or connect with me on ISA Connect or LinkedIN.
• We will hold regular meetings and programs that engage an engineer’s natural curiosity – Completed and Absolutely Crushed last year. Credit to Kevin and Andre’ here as well as all of our volunteer speakers. We transitioned smoothly to virtual, met regularly, and learned quite a bit about emerging technologies. We are teeing up our programs for the next year – if you have a specific topic idea, please let us know. Looking forward to getting these back in person.
• We will improve our outreach to local companies and schools to share our resources as we are the local representatives of the organization that sets the Standard in Automation – To summarize this one down to two words: Grow Membership. We need better focus on this during the upcoming year. Last year we reached out to several companies and local schools, as well as attending virtual events to promote the ISA, but being handcuffed to the virtual world slowed our progress on this one.
Now that you have been reminded of our goals and seen our scorecard, lets talk about the upcoming season – Planning Season!! We are in good hands with our Program team of Andre’ and Kevin to continue the track record of top-notch programs as we return these events to an in person environment. They are working hard at filling out our monthly program schedule. Leadership is in place and we will continue our smooth transition at the end of the Board terms a year from now, but we do need the next generation of leaders. That ties seamlessly to the real focus of our Section planning – growth.
I don’t get it. St. Louis is home to world class companies in manufacturing, processing, and consumer goods. We are positioned in the geographic middle of 2 top-notch engineering schools, and we have great engineering and technical schools in the metro area. Interest in Automation should be at an all time high. However, over the last 10 years, we’ve seen our membership essentially be cut in half. Our plan going into our 2021-22 year is to accelerate our growth efforts and outreach. We will recruit new members and we will identify new leaders.
Let me remind you – Automation is Everywhere! ISA sets the standards in Automation in every facet of industry. ISA opens the door to a global network of professionals and standards for everything Automation. Please, if you are reading this, consider joining us at isa.org/join. If you have any questions, I am always available to share my ISA story and why membership in this organization was the single greatest move in my career.
See you soon,
Cory N. Kniepp
ISA St. Louis Section, President