October Trustee's Letter

Dear Friends,

Hope you all are doing well and staying safe. It has been a very difficult time, but I really appreciate how hard everyone is working and has continued to do great work. Our annual awards are a testament to this. Thank you for all the members and sponsors who attended and supported our first ever Virtual Awards Gala, and heartiest congratulations to all the award winners and to all the firms who submitted their projects.

The awards gala committee did a phenomenal job in organizing this event. Cheers to all of committee members, especially Kevin Gaughan and Benjamin Boyd and Kathleen Lane!

Despite the pandemic, a lot has been happening at ASLA National. I am sure you all have received the email announcing the virtual conference reVISION ASLA 2020. It is unfortunate that we cannot all meet in person; however, this is a great opportunity to get your educational credits and learn in the comfort of your home office, and at a very reasonable cost. I encourage you all to sign up and support ASLA’s effort to continue the tradition.

Now a few key highlights from National ASLA;

* ASLA welcomes our new CEO. A personal video message introducing our new CEO Torey Carter-Conneen to the membership and the broader landscape architecture community was released online and via social media last week.

* On September 3, ASLA announced the 2020 Professional and Student Award winners. Each year, the awards website is one of our most popular resources, and in the first few weeks there have already been 21,000 pageviews for Professional Awards and 20,000 pageviews for Student Awards, so if you haven’t already, please check them out.

*Landscape architecture students continue to take advantage of ASLA’s free membership offer, bringing the total to 3,726 students, student affiliate, and international student members. Students now make up nearly a quarter of the entire membership. Students can complete an application using a simple survey process with more information found on the ASLA student webpage.

As always, I would like to end with a request that we need volunteers to serve on our committees and bring in fresh ideas. As announced at the virtual gala, we are still trying to find someone to fill the position of the Treasurer. If you wish to contribute to this effort and the profession, please feel free to reach out to us at contact@marylandasla.org

Have a wonderful year ahead and please stay safe!

Sincerely,

Om Khurjekar, PLA, ASLA

Trustee MDASLA