A Message from the MDASLA President

Dear Friends and Colleagues, The last few months have been exceedingly tough on the field of landscape architecture. Clients are freezing projects, accountants are seeking forgivable loans, and firms are having to make tough decisions on personnel to keep projects flowing. Working, parenting, and sheltering in place have all been mixed into a mess of just trying to keep up while keeping an ear out for something… anything, that tells us there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Despite all of this, your Maryland Chapter has been forging ahead and making our own tough decisions on programming and allocation of resources. Board members have always been welcome to call into meetings so that they can meet their other obligations, so the transition to online-only workflows has been seamless. Our decision to push our Awards Gala, award program deadlines, and other events were difficult but necessary to maintain everyone’s safety while not putting additional stress on our members.

That being said, our chapter is committed to celebrating the great work of our members in the near future. We have reset the Awards Program deadline to June 30th at 12 noon. We hope you will take advantage of this extra time to consider submitting awards for consideration. New categories for 2020 aim to open up our process to more members. More updates on an award event with be coming in the following months.

We also want to take care of our students, many of whom are losing out on internships and first jobs if they are graduating this month. National ASLA has taken the generous step of making student memberships FREE. For our part, we are hosting a resume and portfolio review on June 11th from 12-2pm. If you are interested in participating, please review additional details in this newsletter and reach out to our Student Outreach committee.

Lastly, our Executive Committee is seeking nominations for new board members for next year. We know that in times like these, membership in a professional organization might need to take a back seat to maintain work and families, let alone volunteering. Our leadership does its best to tailor responsibilities to the capacity of committee members. I am happy to talk with anyone who is interested in joining us. Thank you and please stay safe!

Sincerely,

Benjamin Boyd, PLA, ASLA

President - Maryland Chapter