President's Message

May 2019

    I hope everyone had a joyous and blessed Easter. It’s always nice to get some time off to have fun with family over the Spring Break and Easter holidays.

    April has been a busy month for FSMS. We started the month with our Strategic Planning Meeting (SPM) held in Tallahassee on April 5th and 6th. The meeting, led by President-Elect Don Elder, began by reviewing our approved plan from last year and identifying all the things we’ve been able to do right. One such area of improvement is our website. It is now much more functional, and we are making continuous improvements to it as we explore new ways to improve the member experience. We have made a lot of progress on improving communication with members and utilizing social media accounts to reach a broader audience. Dominic Levings, our Communications Director, has done a fantastic job for us.

    We have continued to be focused on our legislative affairs, and we will be making it through this Legislative Session in good shape. Richard Allen and Bill Muscatello have done a great job in moving forward with addressing Chapter 177 revisions and updates. They have enlisted surveyors from both the public and private sectors to assist in this effort. Through discussion at the SPM, we’ve identified many things we, as a Society, can do to restructure and reorganize in order to provide value to all our members, from all generations. We are also still working to improve our education program by increasing the amount of quality offerings. This is a huge task that won’t happen overnight, but progress is being made.

    On April 9th-13th, I was honored to represent Florida at the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) Spring Meeting in Arlington, Virginia. This was the first national meeting I have attended, and I really enjoyed being there and meeting many surveyors from all over the country.

    Capitol Hill Day was a great experience, and everyone should try to participate in it at least once. I had the unique opportunity to be a part of a bill Senator Rubio introduced on Thursday of that week entitled The National Flood Insurance Rate Map Interagency Technology Act of 2019. This bill promotes the sharing of data across agencies promoting uniformity of basic database information. This bill also promotes adding cadastral features to the NFIP rate maps. I believe this will make these maps much more user-friendly. Lastly, it identifies a time frame in which the maps will be updated to reflect the 2022 Datum Change. We were pleased to applaud and commend Senator Rubio in his press release for taking this action.

    The NSPS Committee Meetings, along with their Board Meeting, were all very informative. Surveyors, associations, and education/academic endeavors across the country are facing the same challenges we have here in Florida, and this gives us another resource to find the solutions to these issues. There are some really smart minds out there all working together for the common cause of ensuring our profession not only survives but thrives in the future.

    Remember Conference registration is NOW OPEN. It’s going to be a great time in Orlando on July 24th-27th. Register for conference, get your hotel room reserved and come enjoy some amazing nationally recognized instructors, our new Topgolf event, and many more fun events like the Welcome BBQ, Exhibit Hall, and Recognition Banquet.

    And for all who have “mothers” in their lives, be they mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives or daughters, use Mother’s Day this month to show them how important they are and how much they mean to you!

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
-Abraham Lincoln

Dianne Collins