Presidents Message
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Frank Pugh, PMI Tallahassee Chapter President |
PMI Tallahassee Chapter Members and Friends: The holidays are upon us. This is a busy time for celebrating good times and preparing for the new year. During all this hustle and bustle, we wanted to take some time to recount what this year has brought to our chapter. We also want to give you a preview of what we plan to bring next year. This was a great year for PMITLH. Chapter membership grew to more than 550. Participation in our events hit post pandemic highs as well. Our chapter meetings often topped the 40-person level, and our professional development events at times reached more than 50 participants! Our networking social events not only gave us a chance to network with one another but also attracted new members to attend future events. In all, we made something good happen every month, and you provided us with positive feedback by attending. And how lucky we were with our speakers this year! We heard from two major local entrepreneurs, a practicing multistate real estate attorney, an experienced local trial lawyer, a C-Suite executive from a major international company, a partner with a nationally known media relations firm, multiple experts on artificial intelligence, and multiple philanthropic professionals serving the region. You also confirmed that you prefer in-person professional development content to be held on Saturdays. We collaborated with the Association of Change Management Professionals and Tallahassee State College to bring long form professional development events both virtually and in person on Saturdays in May and September. They were well attended and provided us with rich feedback. Using this guidance, we want to continue these partnerships into the new year and develop more fun in-person learning opportunities. Every year we have term limits and elections that necessitate changes to our board. With thanks for four years of service as our VP of Administration, we say goodbye to Deidra Jones whose term expired this year. We hope to see her in some form of emeritus service in the years to come. As far as incoming board members, we welcome Rick Owen and Rabih Chehayeb to their new roles as VP Administration and VP Programs respectively. Rick made a difference on our Military Outreach Committee and is now ready to help us maintain our important administrative processes. Rabih distinguished himself this year by helping us recruit new participants in the Guardian Ad Litem Foundation diaper drive. He will no doubt bring the same high level of energy and engagement to running our chapter meetings. You will recognize Shameeka King. Shameeka has served as the VP of Programs and is now moving to the VP of Membership area. We are thrilled that she is staying on the Board. You will read more about Shameeka later in the December 2025 newsletter. We have a great deal in store for you in calendar year 2026. We have discussed an overarching strategy of identifying and recounting real world implementations of project management to amplify the power and relevance of our professional message. This strategy of using successful PM examples will guide us in several of our goals:
We will waste no time getting started on these goals. Our Tallahassee Board Annual Planning Meeting is on Saturday January 10, 2026. It is a four-hour facilitated workshop designed to confirm our strategy in how we will serve you, our members. From a tactical perspective, we aim to produce action plans for all the confirmed strategic goals. Again, this year, emeritus PMITLH past president David Davis will be our facilitator. In closing, I want to say on behalf of the board how privileged we feel in serving you the members of the Tallahassee PMI chapter. All of us want to thank you for making this a great year, and we commit to you that we will make 2026 even better. We hope that your holidays are marked by joy and peace and that your new year brings a sense of optimism and energy. See you in 2026. |
