We had a great time at CAPPA 2001 at Southeast Missouri State University. The educational program provided a smorgasbord of options, and the exhibit hall held a record number of display booths, representing a wide range of business partner products and services.

     Special thanks goes to APPA President Gary Reynolds for giving his time to be with us throughout the entire conference, being our keynote speaker for the second day, and presenting a full day of programming. Gary's presentations, and those of several others, were top quality and representative of programs offered at the International APPA's Institute and annual Educational Facilities Leadership Forum.

     At our business meeting, Darrel Meyer was elected third vice president to host the 2004 conference in Kansas City. Darrel was also recently appointed to the APPA Awards and Recognition Committee and will serve on our CAPPA Region Awards committee as well. Pat Apel was reelected to serve another two-year term as our education chair and Neil Morgenson was reelected to serve another two-year term as the treasurer. An announcement was made that Bob Hutton was recently appointed to serve on the APPA Professional Affairs Committee. Amendments were adopted to the Bylaws that provide for the immediate past president to chair the Awards committee and provides for Emeritus membership for qualifying business partners. The group was advised that the Executive Committee would be looking at a possible consolidation of the Bylaws and Constitution documents at the spring Board meeting; any proposed changes will be mailed to the membership at least 60 days prior to next year's conference.

     We have three standing committees provided for in our Constitution and Bylaws: awards, membership, and education. We want to energize these committees with active participation from "enthusiastic volunteers," so as to engage the membership more directly in carrying out the mission of our Association. In order to do this more effectively, CAPPA President Al Stoverink is asking for more "enthusiastic volunteers," and has committed to personally work with each committee chair to facilitate bringing each committee together for a meeting between now and the semi-annual Board meeting, held in April. To achieve this objective, we will try to coordinate meetings of the committees with the Technology Conference in San Antonio or some other time convenient to most members of the committees.

     John Skubal, who is the immediate past president, will chair the Awards committee this year, per the amended Bylaws. Due to a deadline of January 31 for APPA award nominations, the committee will meet in Kansas City within the next 45 days to map out a strategy to see that deserving members of our association have an opportunity to be recognized in the coming year. Other volunteers who have agreed to serve on this important committee are Lalo Gomez (Texas), David Gronquist (Kansas), and Neil Morgenson (Nebraska).

     Neal Swarnes, membership chair, will continue to chair the Membership committee. He already recruited a number of enthusiastic volunteers to serve as committee members for this year and held a committee meeting during the recent conference.

     Pat Apel, education chair, will also continue to chair the Education committee. Pat is hard at work putting together the Technology Conference, but there is great interest in establishing other similar programs or one-day workshops in all parts of the region for front-line staff. Of particular interest is the potential to forge a partnership with the Physical Plant Crafts Association (PPCA), who were very ably represented at our conference by their current President, Bonnie Crippen, and their current Secretary, Charlene Badger.

     Next year will be the 50th Anniversary Conference to be held at Black Hills, South Dakota. Art Jones and company are planning their version of a great educational and networking experience. As the conference is rotated to different areas of the CAPPA region and sponsored by different campuses each year, each conference takes on its own flavor and a slightly different mix of people are able to attend.

     Part of our mission is to facilitate ample opportunities for engagement as an association by individual members. We are constantly on the hunt for "enthusiastic volunteers" who want to contribute to the development of the organization in some way. We are all very busy people so we are not looking for "solo pilots" who have to take on major tasks with little or no help. We are an association of over 700 members, so just a little from a few can serve a lot. As was so aptly presented by APPA President Gary Reynolds, "Leadership is personal." Let's make it so.