 Kyle R. Smith, AIA
President, AIA Louisiana
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First of all let me thank you, the members, for electing me to this position two years ago. I am excited about this great challenge, opportunity and huge responsibility that you all have entrusted in me. As 2017 President of AIA Louisiana, my main focus is going to be to work with the board of directors and make sure we all can contribute and give back to the profession that has been such a huge part of our lives over the years.
2017 Is going to be a very busy year for all of us in Louisiana. We will continue to finalize the work of reorganizing the components throughout the state.
The first item that we will continue to enhance on in 2017, is our core member services and the final steps in the restructuring of our state and local components. As you might have already known, our board of directors and staff at AIA Louisiana have been hard at work in restructuring our components to remain in line with what national is expecting from us as a state organization. Currently AIA Louisiana has been restructured to include four chapters (AIA Baton Rouge, AIA New Orleans, AIA Shreveport and AIA South Louisiana) and four sections (AIA Central Louisiana, AIA Louisiana Coastal, AIA Monroe and AIA Southwest Louisiana). Regardless of the titles of chapter or section we are all members of AIA Louisiana and we will work together as one state component. Each newly formed section will still have a local board, will still provide critical local advocacy, still have a voice on our state board and will still have the ability to offer continuing education and networking programs, but will be free of the onerous requirements for governance and communications that are difficult for small, unstaffed chapters.
The next item I would like to focus on this year and continuing into next year, will be to look at the long term strategic plan of the chapter. Since there have been changes to our state organization through the evaluation of core member services, we feel like this would be a great opportunity to look at the current format of the board and make any adjustments necessary. This would also include a chapter assessment. Change can be viewed sometimes as an intimidating factor. In our situation, I believe that change will help to create a positive atmosphere for the board of directors, staff and all of our members throughout the state.
And finally, even though I turned 40 this year, I still consider myself a younger architect in the profession and therefore I would like to continue to highlight the achievements of our emerging professionals in this state through the guidance of our more experienced architects. There are so many talented emerging professional architects in Louisiana and we need to continue to recognize them on a state and even a national level.
I have no doubt that every member of AIA Louisiana will work hard to ensure that we have a successful year and that we will continue to be a strong association with active participation from members in every part of Louisiana.
I am so grateful to be a part of an organization with so many energetic and talented people and look forward to serving you as president of AIA Louisiana in 2017.
Kyle Smith