Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It has been my pleasure and privilege to serve as your president  for the last year.  When I accepted the gavel, I spoke to you about the mission of our Society, quoting:.

“The mission of the Maryland Society of Professional Engineers is ‘to promote the ethical, competent, and licensed practice of engineering, and to enhance the professional, social and economic well-being of its Maryland members.’

“Fulfillment of this mission is to be achieved through pursuit of twelve objectives, as stated in our By-Laws. All of these objectives have to do with the strengthening of our profession in the state of Maryland. We support the work of current engineers, seek to provide opportunity and encouragement to prospective engineers, and promote the profession as a whole to the public and to our state government.

“Towards these ends, I believe that we will need to focus during the next year on two particular areas of concern

“We need to continue to grow our membership, both in number and involvement, and we need to watchdog upcoming legislation that might impact on the 10,000 plus professional engineers in the state of Maryland”

The past year has presented challenges to most of us, both professionally and personally

Many of us in private practice and in public service have gone without paychecks and seen our incomes reduced.

Many have experienced the pain of being laid off or of laying someone off.

The optimists among us are seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Some economists are predicting an end of the recession by the start of 2010.

Our Society has not be unaffected by this economy, but we have dealt with our issues and we have come into our new year a stronger and healthier organization.

Let me address our progress during the past year:

First, membership issues

We continue to be one of a small handful of state societies that are growing  and perhaps the only one with continued growth over the past several  years

Over the past 12 months our growth continued

?  One hundred and nine individuals joined us during the past year -- a growth rate of more than 5%.

?  We have added associates three new associates, all of whom are providers of professional services to engineering firms or individual engineers.

?  Atlantic Risk Managements helps firms save on  property and casualty insurance, including professional liability coverage.  Mike Colonnello of Atlantic Risk is here with us this evening.

?  Garrison Financial helps individuals with life insurance and financial planning. John Greene and Steve Scheik are with us from  Garrison Financial this evening.

?  Whiteford Taylor provides legal services. Dino  La Fiendra is their representative.

?  This is a future direction for our society. Associates who will support us and who will benefit by their association with us.

?  Each of us can probably help recruit similar associates for our state society.

During the past year we have had growing attention from state government leaders

This started a couple of years ago with Gov. Martin O’Malley and Deputy Secretary of the Environment Bob Summers, and John Porcari, then secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation and now number two man at the U.S. D.O.T.

We continued during this past year with  Neil Pedersen, administrator of the Maryland State Highway Administration and Shari Wilson, secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Our Professional Engineer Recognitions Events continue to grow

?  During Engineers Week this feted the largest number of newly licensed Professional Engineers ever, and the largest number of  engineers were inducted into the Order of the Engineer.

We have continued to make progress on stability in tough times

?  We resolved a long-standing issue involving  an advance from NSPE

?  We completed our fiscal year with income exceeding $100,000 and net equity of more than $50,000 for the first time in recent memory and what may be the first time in our history.

This year we have revitalized our Web page. 

?  Thanks to Manoj Jha and his student, Rachel Richardson, who is now a student member of our Society.

?  We are now able to have very timely updates performed by our staff.

I made a personal commitment to support the rebuilding of our chapters, a number of which were moribund or dormant.

?  Frederick Chapter is pace-setter under the leadership of  Michael Swanson.

?  The Chesapeake Chapter continues to make progress under the leadership of Steve Warfield.

?  Annapolis Chapter is showing renewed energy under the leadership of Fred Ateto.

?  Baltimore is starting its come-back, under the leadership of Paul Sill, with the holiday party in conjunction with the lighting of the George Washing Monument a very nice new tradition.

?  Hagerstown continues its very successful program under the leadership of Dan Matonak.

?  Potomac and Southern are having struggles that should be resolved in the next year or two.

Our professional development education programs continue to provide a service to our members and those we supervise.

?  Thanks to Mike Clar for his continued work on stormwater management and environmental site design education.

?  These courses continue to draw participants not just from Maryland, but from Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, the District of Columbia, and from as far distant at Boston, Mass., this year.

Under the leadership of Dave Thaler, we have launched a successful initiative with Maryland Defense Force. I understand that Maryland Defense Force Engineers Crops now numbers some 50 professional engineers who are donating their time to training for assistance in natural disasters or other emergencies. Our member Steven Arndt, who you will recognize at vice chair of the Maryland State Board for Professional Engineers, has become deputy commander of this group.

?  Implementation on new by-laws proceeding well

Our issues as a state society generally involve the state Administration, the Legislature and the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, with its Board for Professional Engineers.

This year we was relatively quiet for us in the General Assembly as legislators spent most of their time working on fiscal matters. The administration and the legislators were looking for every dime they could find to keep the machinery of state government functioning. We were concerned that they would notice a surplus in the Design Board Special Fund that supports the State Board for Professional Engineers and the other four design boards -- and raid it for other purposes.

So we went to work on maintaining the integrity of the special fund. 

Those of us who have been around for a while remember the days a half-dozen years ago when the phones were not answered on  a timely basis and email in-boxes were full.

Our Design Boards Special Fund was intended to prevent that from happening in the future.  But in these difficult economic times, our board ran into bureaucratic problems with a state government hiring freeze, deferral in equipment replacement, and so forth.

We worked our contacts with legislative. That includes having the chair of the Senate subcommittee that deals with the Board’s budget as a speaker before his constituents at our Annapolis chapter meeting. We wrote letters to committee members and testified before relevant committees.

But our major focus was on the Governor’s Office.

We worked closely with the professional societies representing the other design professions -- architects, landscape architects, surveyors and interior designers. -- Thanks to our new president-elect Ed Hubner for coordinating those efforts. -- 

With the Presidents of the other four design societies, I signed a letter to Governor O’Malley expressing our concerns.

The result was a letter that I received last month from Thomas Perez, Secretary of the department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, who is moving on to an important position in the Untied States Department of Justice as a member of the Obama administration.

I want to quote portions of this letter to you:

“I can report to you that we concluded the FY2010 budget process with the special Fund intact.” the Secretary wrote.  “I have strongly advocated that the funds for our Boards not be subjected to this sort of threat. This is especially true in light of the difficulties encountered when making a good faith effort to receive an appropriation to expend resources for worthwhile purposes.

“Licensees paying into the fund to support licensing and regulatory activities should have a reasonable expectation that their fees, after proper justification and review, will be expended to provide enhanced services to the general public, applicants and the regulated professionals.  I will continue to advocate in this regard and will recommend that view to my successor as Secretary.

“The absence of a dedicated investigator in a full-time position has been a problem  and disadvantage to the Boards for an extended period.” he continued.

“In this difficult budget environment, we were able to secure a PIN (that is a regular, permanent state position with benefits!) and have assigned it to the Boards. Once hired, the investigator will be available to the Design Boards on a priority basis.”

“We continue  to work with approving agencies to handle staffing issues. We recently hired a new communications assistant for the Boards. Moreover, when the Boards lost their examination coordinator, we were able to secure near immediate approval to recruit for the position without the delay typically encountered exemptions when dealing with budget-related freeze.”

He also reported that new computers have been ordered for the design board staff members.

Finally, he wrote:

“Special funding is a plus for the Boards for whom it is authorized. These units have seen their staffing and resources augmented and the quality of service improved. Importantly, in the current budgetary situation, the special fund units have seen no reductions. This contrast very sharply with the budgetary impacts felt by the eleven general funds boards within the Division where significant reductions in management, investigatory and clerical staff have been absorbed in the last two years.”

I call that SUCCESS! Pretty much a home run!

If any professional engineers wonder about the success of our advocacy as a group, this commitment in writing from the Secretary on behalf of the Governor should convince them.

            We are also pleased that the Secretary and the Governor followed through on our recommendation for the reappointment of Pastor Farinas to Maryland State Board for Professional Engineers, as they did last year with the reappointment of Skip Harclerode, who now chairs the Board.

We are working closely with the PE Board on their legislative agenda and ours, and we have a joint committee exploring next year’s legislative agenda.

Our other major regulatory matter over the past several years has been the Stormwater Management regulation to implement Environmental Site Design.

Ernie Sheppe led a very active MDSPE committee to review the proposed regulation line-by-line and word-by-word. They passed their recommendations on the Department of the Environment and our point of view received careful consideration by the regulators. The new regulation is now in force. We are developing a training program for design professionals which will be underway by the end of this summer.

I want to conclude by report by extending thanks to a number of people and organizations.  First, to our national society, NSPE. Larry Jacobson, executive director, is with us this evening.

Thanks to our staff, Bob Mead and Joanna von Briesen, who have served us for the past ten years, and to our lobbying team, Public Sector Consulting Group -- Chris Costello is with us this evening.

I want to thank Joel Oppenheimer for his continuing management of the MathCounts program for us, and Bob Sebastian for his service as Chairman of our foundation as well as chair of our Order of the Engineer Board.

Finally, thanks to our retiring past president, Dave Thaler, and our new president, Bill Ryan.

I hand over the gavel of the Maryland Society of Professional Engineers to Bill with the admonishment, 

“Meeting the needs of professional engineers in the state of Maryland is our purpose, our reason for being.”

  With a view to that mission, I am pleased to have had the opportunity to serve as your President for the past year.