2016 Directory

23 AIA State Government Network Conference BY MIKE POTTER, AIA, AIA WYOMING SGN REPRESENTATIVE The 26th annual State Government Network Meeting (SGN) was held in Washington, DC from July 11th through July 13th. The successful meeting was well attended by over 80 members from 40 states. The meeting kicked off with a reception at the US Botanical Gardens where we were welcomed by Stephen Ayers, AIA , LEED AP. Architect of the Capitol and AIA President Russ Davidson and AIA CEO Robert Ivy. T he next two days were filled with discussion groups, presentations and breakout groups. Several topics were discussed includingThe Practice of Architecture, Continuing Education, Design Competitions, Encroachment, Energy Efficiency, Code Adoption and Interpretation, Permit Streamlining and Advocacy. In addition, we heard fromNCARB regarding the paths to licensing and changes that are being implemented. I have included links to some of the presentations as well as Breakout Group Summaries. SpeakUp The first ever SpeakUp conference was held inWashington DC from July 13th through July 15th . This event was an opportunity to learn about advocacy and how to better promote architecture at all levels of government and community. There were several workshops that presented information on communications, team building, developing a strong legislative plan, advocacy and how do make presentations. We also broke into groups to develop a presentation to sell a legislative idea to our State Board of Directors. The groups worked hard and mostly on their own time to get the presentations ready. It was a very effective training session and there were four excellent presentations made. I gave Susan a couple of handouts that were worth the entire conference and we hope to follow up on them. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me. b