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Chapter Members, It’s February, the month of love and advocacy. The time of the year where we are called upon to advocate for the profession we love. We celebrate advocacy this month with our biennial Architect’s Day happening on February 21st — where we gather the architects from across the state in Austin to advocate for the issues important to our profession with lawmakers in their Capital offices. This year, Bruno Vasquez and myself will be attending Architect’s Day to represent our chapter and meet with the El Paso delegation of lawmakers. In January, Chapter President-Elect Rida Asfahani, TxA Director Edgar Lopez and myself traveled to the annual Texas Society of Architects (TxA) Leadership Summit in Austin. For the first time ever, the Society brought together the Chapter President’s and President-Elect’s with the TxA Board Members from across the state for this year’s Leadership Summit. Our keynotes for the Leadership Summit included Dima Ghawi who talked about managing unconscious bias in the workplace and the two-day Summit was closed out with a speech from this year’s AIA National President, Emily Grandstaff-Rice, FAIA who joined us from Boston. We were able to visit one on one with the President who shared her goals for the coming year. The Leadership Summit offered a remarkable opportunity for us to share and gather best practices with other chapter leaders from across the state. In the process, we were able to connect with other chapters who are interested in collaborating with ours for events like Design Awards and who have resources to offer in support of future AIA Fellowship nominations from our chapter. So what can you do to to be the Voice for your Profession as we celebrate Advocacy Month? Here are a few takeaways from the Leadership Summit: Volunteer to serve on the AIA El Paso Committees and TxA Committees. Speak in public forums on issues important to you and profession. Volunteer to serve on boards within the El Paso community. Meet with elected officials, community leaders and policymakers about architectural of design issues. Organize educational opportunities for your community and policymakers Run for public office!
One such opportunity to be a voice is happening TONIGHT where you can attend the City of El Paso’s public meeting for the new Downtown + Uptown Plan currently under development. Details for the event that starts at 5:30pm are below. I urge you to be an active member in our Chapter this year. This starts by simply attending our monthly Chapter meetings and volunteering to help with our annual events. Your time invested benefits the profession as a whole as we work to increase awareness of the AIA in our community. Don’t forget to lend your voice with an annual TAC Contribution at the link below to support our advocacy efforts at the State Capital. Finally, a big shout out to Matthew Walther with Texas Lighting for sponsoring this month’s chapter meeting on February 23rd. We hope to see you all there! Best Regards,
William Helm, AIA
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