It's Your Chapter; How Do You Feel About It?

It is with mixed feelings that I write my final President's Letter to you. My second two-year term as your President ends on June 30. I have been a member of PMIW for 18 years, and I have enjoyed volunteering in various capacities for 16 of those years. When I was elected as President-Elect in 2019, I was looking forward to a year of preparation to build on the great work of previous administrations. We had considerable momentum as the Chapter was growing in membership and expanding in offerings. Then, at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 we started hearing about this strange virus and wondered what it might mean for our plans. We were soon to find out.

I just barely began to realize that my tenure would not start out with grandiose expansion plans, but rather with a scramble for survival. And so, I had to adjust quickly to become your 'pandemic President.' It is only through the dedication of our Board and committed volunteers that we were able to use virtual meeting technology to maintain our roster of offerings; and, in fact, we added the Winter Professional Development Day and experimented with partnering with Project Bites and now with IIL to provide discounted access to valuable learning.

So I am very grateful for the volunteers who have supported our Chapter during my tenure. My hope is that their example will inspire more members to offer time and talent to continuously improve our offerings and the infrastructure to deliver programs in a high quality manner. I intend to stay involved, and I hope current volunteers will as well, but I wonder – how do you feel about increasing your involvement? We need your constructive feedback, ideas and time. Our profession is on the brink of change, much resulting from the introduction of AI into project management tools and job expectations. My hope is that it will motivate you to a higher level of engagement. I can only promise you that your engagement will be personally and professionally rewarding.

As I leave my post in the very capable hands of our incoming President, Laxmi Vallury, I wish you the very best for the summer season and look forward to seeing you supporting Chapter events and programs in the future.

Peter Roggemann, PhD
President,
PMI Westchester