Greetings!
I am delighted to be your new Maryland Chapter of ASLA President. Thank you very much for the honor and opportunity.
My goal in the next few months is to build upon the chapter’s recent successes and momentum, and focus on our efforts related to membership, sponsorship, and advocacy. To that end, we will host another strategic planning effort this winter. You may recall a similar effort a few years ago, which included online surveys. Please watch for event dates and new surveys soon, and please participate! We can only do better if you let us know what we are doing well and where we need some work.
One way I know our chapter can improve with some work is participation – participation across the board. From events to committees, students to fellows, non-members to members, firms to sponsors – there really is something for everyone.
Participation leads to connections. With the National ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO still fresh in my mind, the theme of Common Ground keeps resonating. We are a diverse profession, more so than most of us likely appreciated when we started down the road to becoming a landscape architect. However, in all our diverse roles, we have common ground with each other. We alone can truly understand and appreciate all that our profession can do and the full breadth of our unique expertise. Sharing time with other landscape architects – even (or perhaps especially) those working in different fields than our own – connects us, brings us closer together as a profession, reminds us of all the unique perspectives our profession has to offer, and is generally just good for the landscape architect’s soul.
So I encourage each of you to join us. Join us at events – stay a while, chat with friends and make new ones, be welcoming to new a face. Join us at the chapter – volunteer a little time, help organize an event, help a committee with a few phone calls, help the communications team with social media. Join us at your level – there are opportunities for the ambitious and those just testing the waters. Not sure where to start? Join us at an Executive Committee meeting – they are open to anyone. You can also reach out to a Board Member or me directly here: ltorres@mgmclaren.com
On that note, I look forward to connecting with more of you as we work grow and improve the chapter! Thank you again for the opportunity to serve our wonderful group.
Sincerely,
Larissa Torres, PLA
Maryland Chapter President