Hello fellow CSI members. We are up and running for the year and have had a good turn out for our last couple of dinner meetings.

In September Bruce Dictor gave a very nice overview of building performance standards. October brought an interesting evening with some 33 attendees and SPG Solar’s Craig Steger discussing tends in the solar energy business. Both dinner meetings had a very different feel but one thing I noticed and applaud is the camaraderie that we share with each other. It was good to see several guests and non-members at both meetings. Marty Fredericks from Patcraft & DesignWeave Carpeting and Pete Swallow from LDM Group, Inc. (Construction Consulting) both came to see what our group had to offer. It has been great to see the principles and senior partners from such great North Bay firms as JMA, Dynamic Precast, ZFA, MKM & Associates, RGH and others coming out to the meetings. It is always great to see long time business and social relationships being reconnected, maintained and new business and social relationships being created. This is what the RECSI dinner meeting is all about. Again, I encourage everyone to pull out the new roster and call that person you have not seen in a while – it is time to reconnect. Get them to a meeting. I thank all the members who took it upon themselves to bring a guest, Rob Shimetz from Wix Architecture, Marty Price, and Steve Clark to name a few. This type of work will be a key component to growing the chapter.

Speaking of introductions, I was introduced to the wider world of CSI at the west region conference in Monterey. This was the first CSI conference that I have attended in my time with the chapter. Conferences are interesting places. At all the conferences I have attended I usually find myself thinking about what it would be like to hear a speaker give a talk on something that would someday be considered historic. I imagine listening to Paulo Freire give a talk on the importance of popular education theory or Alberto Giacometti speaking about the connection between surrealism and existential thought. Usually I start thinking these thoughts while at a conference listening to, for example, a particularly intriguing aspect of how to report unrelated business expense of a 501(c) 3 non-profit – yawn.

Fortunately the Monterey conference had no finance seminars but instead plenty of reasonably intriguing discussions on how the Monterey Bay Aquarium was built, sustainability and general CSI goings on. The truth is that I heard nothing earth shattering but gleaned something as equally important: Affirmation. I found, on a somewhat larger scale, what I have found here at our local chapter; a creative, intelligent and friendly group of professionals all sharing the common goal of furthering the knowledge for creating and maintaining the built environment. Between the seminars and educational talks I had the chance to meet CSI folks from around the country. We shared common stories about our chapters, our members and the trials and tribulations of chapter survival.

I was proud to represent such a dynamic and well known chapter. I encourage our chapter members to attend a regional conference, you won’t be disappointed. The next regional conference will be held in Oakland in March. If you are interested in more information on this please call me or Jennifer Alexander. We would be happy to have another great turn out at the regional level.

I thank you all for your recent participation and I look forward to seeing all of you at the November dinner meeting where Sean Maloney from Maloney Construction will be speaking about Helical Pier Technology.

Respectfully,

Jim Daniel