2022 OPWA Board of Directors

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2022 OPWA President’s Message

(from January 20,2022 Annual General Meeting)

To OPWA Members and the Board of Directors, I am so thankful for this opportunity to serve as President of the Ontario Public Works Association…the best chapter in APWA! I am really looking forward to the year ahead; both the challenges and the opportunities.

My journey with OPWA started back in 2007 when I attended my first APWA Congress in San Antonio. I soon joined the startup Chapter Advocacy Committee and then put up my hand to volunteer for the Education Committee. In 2017, I was fortunate to be nominated to the Board of Directors and became the OPWA Treasurer in 2019. Now following a couple pandemic positions on the Executive Board, I am proud to be serving the Chapter as President in 2022.

I know that OPWA has given me the opportunity for both personal and professional growth. I found during the pandemic, especially the early days, that being part of an association and having a professional network to lean on was invaluable. For our long time members, I know that a professional network is strong reason for you to continue as an OPWA member and for our new members, developing a network of industry peers is something I hope that you will find as part of our OPWA community.

While the Association has not been able to host in person events during the last year, there has been an incredible amount of work accomplished in the background. The driving force being our now past President, Enrico Stradiotto, who has put this chapter on solid ground and with clear direction. He covered a lot of bases in 2021 through his leadership and very driven efforts…thank you Enrico!

My focus for 2022 as President are:

Focus on Membership – gaining new members through outreach and promotion, ensuring current members remain and that past members rejoin;

Focus on Recovery and Finances - revenue is key to our continuation for being an effective chapter to provide value to both our membership and the public works industry.

I will lean on our Strategic Plan as it is now being implemented and we have momentum to achieve our goals. We will need to be innovative and strategic as we work our way to a return to normal times. And as always, we want to create value for our members and have a good time.

Continuity moving forward is key and I am so glad that Brian Barber has signed on again to continue as Chapter Executive Director. Thank you Brian. Thank you as well, to our Board of Directors who have all basically returned and thank you to our committee volunteers for your continuing efforts in contributing to OPWA. I am confident with the Executive, the Board, and our committee volunteers, we can carefully move our way through pandemic recovery and come back even stronger and have the flexibility to adapt to challenges that may come our way in 2022.