As many of you may or may not know your Executive Board and At Large Members have worked very hard over the last year to develop a Strategic Plan and Mission Statement. The newly created Mission Statement reads as follows:

The mission of the Michigan Chapter of American Society of Landscape Architects is to serve as the chapter voice of ASLA in Michigan, to provide leadership, educate and to participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning and artful design of our cultural and natural environments.

An outcome of this Strategic Planning has been the creation of a Government Affairs Committee Chaired by Vanessa Harris, and the designation of Keith Cheli as the National Licensure Representative. The first and foremost goal of the Committee is to identify and understand the positions of our members in order and to connect with National for consideration of a practice act upgrade. As many of you know, National is very committed to having all 50 chapter states registered with practice acts by 2010. The effort has been very successful with approximately 37 states enacting practices acts. Michigan is one of 10 states with a title act only. Three states have no license at all.

More information and educational opportunities will be presented to the membership throughout the year, but we wanted to take this opportunity to begin to open up the lines of communication between the Government Affairs Committee and the chapter, offer an opportunity for members to get involved with this Committee as it begins to undertake this endeavor of research, education, networking, and plan development.

This Committee will be very dedicated to structuring this process as being membership driven, not Executive Board driven. Please contact Vanessa if you have questions or an interest in serving on this Committee.

Vanessa V. Harris, Past President, Michigan ASLA

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Dear MASLA Members:

As I have gotten more involved in MASLA over the past few years, one thing has continued to surprise me.  That is for a relatively small professional organization (we have around 350 members) we get quite a bit done.  OK, I know a few of you just snorted when you read that but let’s take a look at things.  Consider the website you are surfing now, our annual meeting, the golf outing, special meetings such as the upcoming Sustainable Approaches to the Conventional Landscape Conference, our active Government Affairs Committee and support of numerous other statewide initiatives such as Healthy Livable Communities, Safe Routes to Schools and Connecting Michigan State Trails Planning Partnership .  This happens because a great many MASLA members have taken it upon themselves to help promote the profession as a whole and work to improve Michigan’s environment through volunteering their time, knowledge and energy.  For that I am most grateful.

This year, we have a full calendar of events and one top priority – licensure.  At the close of last year’s legislature, we came tantalizingly close to moving our current Title Act to a Practice Act.  Through the diligent efforts of our Government Affairs Committee led by Keith Cheli and with the guidance of our lobbyist Derek Dalling of Kindsvatter Associates our bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support!  We simply ran out of time to get the bill through the house. 

So right now we stand in a better position than ever to achieve our long standing goal; to have the landscape architecture profession a licensed profession on par with architecture and engineering.  This is not about egos – it has significant ramifications in our ability to compete on a level playing field not only in this state but other states.  But this is not a done deal – we still need everyone’s help to make it happen.  So first, make a donation to Landscape Architects of Michigan Political Action Committee and second, contact your state representatives.  You can find out more information on doing both of those activities right here on our website.   Thanks!

Norman Cox , President, Michigan ASLA