President's Message

Members,

First let me say a huge thank you to the membership for entrusting me with this important responsibility for the next year. I feel truly blessed and honored to have been elected President at this stage of my career and want you to know that I am committed to seeing that the Society’s goals and new challenges are not only met, but exceeded in the coming months.

I will do my best in this role to ensure that the Florida Surveying and Mapping Society remains in a leadership position for our profession, and I will be focusing on the following:

1.  Protection of the Profession through our Legal & Legislative Committees actions.

2.  Assisting in finding new ways to fully Fund and Support our Political Action Committee, for without their help and our Lobbyist Firm, we would be talking about a completely different Society.

3.  Being proactive as opposed to reactive to legislative issues from the past year. We will begin by using the collective knowledge and experience of our Board and other members in helping to rewrite parts of our current laws that need fixing and work with our regulatory board to get the process started.

4.  Meeting, talking with, and encouraging the Geomatics Students at UF, FAU and any other colleges with a Geomatics program, to hear what they have to say, helping them understand what the Society does and can do for them, and encouraging active participation for their future.

5.  Finally, but also important, I will be working with and assisting with the new Work Force Development Committee. UF has a new person (Katie Britt [email protected]) whose job is to work on this issue. I trust that all of our members will assist her in getting this program up and running.

We had a great Conference in July and based on the attendance and all of the responses from the attendees it was a huge success, with about 520+ people attending. We haven’t seen that type of attendance in decades so we must be doing something right. We have set a high standard now as we look forward to next conference in Bonita Springs and we hope to have similar success in the future.

And lastly, I take to heart those ominous words from our own Jack Breed after congratulating me on my new position: “Don’t sink the ship”.

Respectfully submitted,

Richard D. Pryce