2018 Directory

23 AIA Wyoming TAP F or 2018, AIA Wyoming Tech- nology in Architectural Practice (TAP), participated in the adviso- ry group’s preparation for the AIA TAP Knowledge Community session for the 2019 AIA National Conference to be held in Las Vegas, NV. An AIA Wyoming award TAP cat- egory is being developed, based on Technology in Architectural Prac- tice-Knowledge Community criteria, for the 2020 AIA Wyoming Awards. Projects that exemplify the use of technology are being scouted to be included as architectural tours as part of our AIA Wyoming conferences. Each July AIA Innovation Awards are collected by TAP at AIA.org/awards. For more information go to www. aia-wyoming.org and click on the “About Us” tab to find AIA WY TAP. b BY MIKE POTTER, AIA T he Small Firm Exchange an- nual meeting was held in Lou- isville, Kentucky on February 5 to February 8, 2018. The executive committee met and set strategies for the coming year. We all agreed that the committees that make up SFX need to work towards establishing goals that are reachable and to estab- lish a way to communicate what we are doing with the members of AIA that we represent – you the small firm practitioner. The SFX continues to meet monthly via conference calls and workgroups. All groups have an active membership and continue to focus on small firms. The advocacy workgroup, of which I am the group leader, is working on establishing a national data base that addresses the small firm and its members. At the present time, AIA National does not have a breakdown of firm size. We are also working to find a way that small firms can band together to get affordable health insur- ance for their employees. There are a few components that have been able to do this, but we are trying to establish a national program. SFX continues to work on lien rights for professionals and is also working to make sure AIA Contract Documents are affordable and easily accessible for small firms. We are working with national staff to set up a dialog with the contract documents people to get our message across – small firms do not like the current cost or format that contract documents are being delivered to us. We are reaching out to our com- ponents through quarterly reports, newsletters and social media to let small firms know what information is available to them and where to find it. SFX has been trying to expand how we get information out to the mem- bers. We are on both Facebook and Twitter and have the AIA Kinetic app. Through these media, you can link to AIA Trust, which has a wealth of information available for small firms. The mission of SFX is three-fold: 1) Advocate for small firms, 2) promote leadership and 3) facilitate and sup- port our local components. b Small Firm Exchange (SFX) BY LEWIS MATTHEW MILLER , AIA