The Oregon APEM Board’s annual retreat was held on a beautiful, sunny day in mid-January.  Board members gathered at the 4-H center outside of Salem, Oregon. The retreat is when the board elects new officers, assigns committee teams, and creates the framework for the forums and events occurring during the upcoming year.  This year there are eight returning professional board members, two student board members transitioning to professional board members, three new professional board members, and one new student board member.  All were all   excited and ready to get to work.
Don Holland, the 2011 President, kicked off the morning by recapping accomplishments and lessons learned during the past year. The next task was to elect officers to serve in 2012.  Your 2012 Oregon APEM Officers are: 

President: Elin Shepard   Elin has been involved in Oregon APEM for several years including serving on the Board for multiple terms.  She is looking forward to helping Oregon APEM reach even greater heights in 2012.   
 

Vice President:  Kellee Jackson   Kellee recently returned from completing a Masters program in Sweden and has previously served on the Board as the President.  She is happy to be back and to begin helping coordinate forums, one of the roles of the Vice President.

Secretary:  Colleen Collins   Colleen has been a student board member for several years and is transitioning to a professional board member this year.  She also served as Secretary last year and is pleased to have the opportunity to continue in this position.   

Treasurer:  SaraHope Smith   SaraHope has been on the Board for about five years.  This will be SaraHope’s third year as Treasurer.  She is interested in further developing the financial reporting system.

After officer elections committee leads and teams were formed. Board committees include Newsletter, Outreach/Marketing, Awards, Financial, Website, and Catering & Venue.  The committees are one of the core functions of the board, which allow quality content to be provided to Oregon APEM members. The second, although no less important, core function of the board is to plan and organize high quality forums that are relevant to members. The afternoon focused on planning the upcoming 2012 forums. A lively discussion about potential forum topics initiated the forum planning for 2012.  Board members suggested different topics and discussed the relevance and applicability of the topics in relation to members being able to immediately use the information provided during forum presentations.  Topics for 2012 (and Spring of 2013) include:

 Spring 2012: Controls

• Summer 2012: Lighting
• Fall 2012:  True Cost of Low Cost/No Cost
• Winter 2012:  Heat Recovery
• Spring 2013:  Chillers and Chiller Systems

Of course these forum topics are general for the moment and subject to change.
The retreat was a great success.  The foundation for 2012 has been laid.  New and returning board members are energized and ready to follow through and make 2012 a great year for members and Oregon APEM.