2009 PRESIDENTS MESSAGE

Happy New Year everyone!  2008 was a successful year for NJAPPA.  We held our fall meeting at Georgian Court University in Lakewood.  We had 80 attendees at the meeting, where we discussed “Picking the Low Hanging Fruit in Recycling”.  This program and the excellent presenters were well received by our attendees.  At lunch we had a brief overview of the Kullman building process in preparation for our January 23 tour of their facilities.  We hope you attend this first ever winter junket and enjoy the tour. 

We are at an exciting time in the growth of our organization.  We now have a state of the art web site, and the ability to track the traffic visiting the site.  This will allow us to identify those regions of the state where we need to concentrate our efforts in membership recruitment. In the past 6 months we have enlisted several more institutions and business partners and we now have more members than at any previous time in the history of the organization.  With increased membership comes increased responsibility of members. Just listing NJAPPA as an organizational affiliation on your resume is not enough.  We need your participation at meetings and we yearn for your contributions as possible presenters, board members and sponsors. 

Yes, our organization has improved, and we are presenting cutting edge programs and providing opportunities to educate and improve your staff inexpensively and locally. On March 25-27 we will be hosting our 3rd Annual Spring Conference at the beautiful Seaview Marriott in Galloway Township, NJ.  Opening the afternoon of the 25th, the Jeopardy Challenge is ON! Test your knowledge of all things Facilities, while partaking of hors d’oeuvres with your peers.  Our Key Note speaker this year is Doug Lipp, former Disney Director of Training. Spend a day working with Doug to develop and improve your leadership skills.  Finally we present solutions to the challenge of doing more with less!  Institutions face ever increasing deficits due to a struggling economy. Our solution oriented panel discussion “Town Meets Gown” on Friday morning will reveal what some NJ universities are doing to work in concert with local municipalities, developers and educators to increase revenues and keep their institutions cutting edge - locations to learn, live and recreate.  Lastly, play a round of golf on one of Seaview Marriott’s award winning golf courses. WE HAVE HELD OUR REGISTRATION & HOTEL PRICING FOR THE THIRD YEAR IN A ROW (If you register by February 25th).  DON’T MISS THIS ONE!

In addition to our annual conference we will be meeting at Montclair State University on May, 8 2009.  At this time, topics include Geo Thermal Systems, LEED EB and Funding Your Solar Project. We are also planning to offer the ever popular Supervisors Tool Kit this August hosted by Rowan University.  Details of this year’s class will soon be up on the web site.  This one week course has been highly praised and is taught by highly skilled APPA instructors.  Our continued commitment to bring cost effective, quality educational programs for facilities professionals locally continues with this installment geared for front line supervisors. 

Hope to see you soon at an upcoming meeting!

Sincerely,

Dianne

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dianne Gravatt
NJAPPA President