I am sure that many of you attended our Annual Convention at the PGS National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens. In my humble opinion, this was our best conference in a long, long while (this millennium). Not that other conferences were slouches. Quite the contrary, but this conference was special. Our Hotel block of rooms reserved and utilized was well more than what we anticipated. All of our events were extremely well attended. This was our first year having a sporting clays event at our conference. I participated in this, and I have to admit that it was a lot of fun and extremely well run. Ditto for our golf tournament. If you missed either, you definitely missed out. All of our seminars at the conference were at or near capacity, and our annual banquet was a joyous event. In fact, those that were there no doubt heard me remark how everyone that attended was happy to be there and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I know that I did.

Kudos to Tom Steckler, Rebecca Culverson, Justin Ortiz, Cathy Campanile, and Taylor Singletary. And FSMS VP Jim Sullivan and committee chairs did a superb job. It seems like every time I turned around, Jim was there, including the “offsite” events (golf and sporting clays). Speaking of Tom Steckler, July 31 was his last day with FSMS, and he is officially retired. The Society definitely moved things forward (only forward…) in so many ways with Tom as our ED. It was definitely sad to see him go, and we most definitely wish him all the best. Rebecca has assumed the Executive Director position, and her first official duty is to find a replacement Education Director. Interviews have begun. I also want to thank NSPS Executive Director Tim Burch for joining us. Tim is a great guy and has a lot of passion for the profession. We are looking forward to working with NSPS and FIG at FIG’s Working Week in Orlando, May 28 to June 1, 2023 (https://fig.net/fig2023/).

I also enjoyed sitting and talking with Red Baker, PhD, Director of the UF IFAS School of Forest, Fisheries and Geomatic Sciences (note the highlight, yes Geomatics is now a name component of the IFAS program), and, of course, our seemingly perennial Treasurer, Dr. Bon Dewitt. In case we did not adequately announce it, but FSMS helped lead the realization of additional legislative funding that was secured for the Geomatics Program this year which has virtually doubled the program’s funding. Special kudos on that to David Daniel and Jack Breed, the Legislative Committee and all of those who have pitched in with the FSM PAC.

Now, it is time to move on to continuing the business of bettering the profession. Look for ideas along those lines to spawn from the Workforce Development Committee and the Professional Practice Committee.

The Florida Surveying and Mapping Society is strong.