It has been my pleasure and honor to serve as your 2015-2016 Chapter President! I find it hard to believe the year has flown by so quickly but I was pleased with the successful outcome of the efforts of our fantastic board!
Early in the year, we were pleased to be able to present 2 scholarships to Temple Facility Management Students so that they could attend World Workplace in Denver. This effort was led by the continued support of Alana Dunoff, our Foundation Chair. It is critical to our sustained success that we encourage and guide the students who are learning about our profession and soon will be employed in the FM industry. In fact, one of my last efforts as President was to encourage a new Young Professional member committee to be formed and Chris Rios, a Temple FM alumni who is now working at Aramark, has agreed to take on the challenge of leading this effort. Our board is committed to growing our young professional membership and we encourage your support.
Some of the other accomplishments over the past year include fantastic programs lead by Tim Capone and Mike McIlhenny, such as the tour of Berkadia’s new office, The Future of the Navy Yard combined with an overview of the GSK facility, a tour of the fascinating Microsoft Technology Center and a behind the scenes tour of the Philadelphia Convention Center. We were also able to celebrate our chapters’ 30th anniversary which included recognition of many of our past presidents and heard encouraging words during a presentation from the current chair of IFMA International, Maureen Ehrenberg.
Our Communications committee, under the leadership of Barb Wojnowski and Sally Ferullo, were busy re-creating the Insight newsletter as well as growing our website and social media presence. Another great accomplishment was a member spotlight interview with Marc Liciardello of Aramark, the newest
Philadelphia Chapter IFMA Fellow.
Some of the behind the scenes accomplishments include updating the Mission and Vision of our chapter as well as updating the By Laws (which hadn’t been done in over 10 years).
This past year also saw our Education Committee grow under the leadership of another Temple graduate, Zahra Khaku. I would anticipate some great initiatives to come this year from this committee.
Our sponsorship committee saw a new co-chair added, Colleen Teears from Radian Group and along with Scott Binder of Health Partners Plans, we saw a significant increase in sponsorship commitments.
The Membership committee headed by Keith Hughes of Millicare and the Retention committee led by Barb Celia of Trinity Health, have had a tremendous impact on the sustained growth of our chapter.
Lastly, one of the most significant accomplishment this past year was the re-emergence of the Golf Outing focused on raising funds for our scholarships efforts. We had a very successful event and many thanks to Marcella Garwood from Comcast and the Golf Committee for their assistance.
The upcoming year promises to be another busy time for our chapter and I am encouraged by the leadership of the incoming President, Dave Scolari. In addition, thank you to Barb Celia for stepping up to the role of Vice President as well as continued appreciation needs to be offered to Jeff Thomas for his
tireless work to keep our finances in check as Treasurer.
We do have a couple other new board members, Kayla Paonessa of Schnoll Painting has agreed to cochair the Membership/Retention Committee and Christine Workman of Kone Elevators, has agreed to co-chair with Program Committee. I cannot stress the importance of volunteerism to the success of our chapter. So, one last time, let me plead with you to get involved-serve on one our committees and attend our programs.
Enjoy the rest of your summer and I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming Fall Programs! I will leave you with this quote from our founding father, Ben Franklin who said “Tell me and I forget, Teach me and I remember but Involve me and I learn”. Please get involved in the chapter-our future
success is directly tied to your involvement!
Steve Sable
Past President
Greater Philadelphia Chapter of IFMA
