Author Archives: SDA Seattle

Members rock!

You know what’s cool about serving on a board of directors? It’s having chapter members who volunteer to help. Who enjoy helping. Who delight in knowing that their help made a difference.

Last year, these chapter members (non-board members) stepped up and served on committees or took on tasks – big or small – that helped the chapter move closer to its goals.

THANK YOU!

Erica Collins (CallisonRTKL)

Sarah Cawthra (ZGF)

Becky Henselen (Selkirk Development)

Stacy Rowland, CDFA (Berger Partnership)

Margaret Vandenberg (Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates)

Eunoh Lee, CDFA (Mackenzie)

Karyn Marks (Studio Meng Strazzara)

Crystal Ray (Pennell Consulting)

EB Meyer (Weinstein A+U)

Shannon Soady, CDFA (DLR Group)

Emily Meyer, CDFA (Bernardo|Wills Architects)

Megan Addison (Weinstein A+U)

THANK YOU!

Our signature social event – Wine Wednesday!

We had a lot of fun last year at our quarterly Wine Wednesdays. It’s become our signature event, and we’re carrying it forward in 2020 – woot! See you at MG2’s office at 5:30 PM on February 5!

Register here!

Look who obtained their CDFA!

It’s never too late, and it’s perfectly okay to duplicate . . .

Huge shout-out to our chapter members who took the Certified Design Firm Administrator exam and passed! Carol Wanda Spradlin and Eunoh Lee are proudly adding “CDFA” after their name. (Yeah, we know they achieved that awesome credential in October 2019, but we didn’t shout it from our blog at the time. Our bad!)

Carol works for Baylis Architects, and is a director on the Seattle chapter board. She’s been a member of SDA since 2015.  Eunoh works for Mackenzie. She joined SDA in 2019 and continues to be an active member.

Congratulations Carol and Eunoh!

How long is your password?

We had a great session last night on how cybersecurity is everyone’s business. Steph Keller (and backed up by Michael Hornung) kept stressing that “longer is better.” Longer passwords, that is. The longer your password, the harder it is for them to be hacked. We get that; that makes sense.

What some of us didn’t know about and first learned of at last night’s business practice event was that there’s a site that can tell you if your email has been pawned (pwned). Simply enter your email address and it will tell you if it’s been pawned or pasted. It’s actually pretty cool (especially if it says your email hasn’t been pwned), but when you see something like “Pwned on 19 breached sites,” well, you can get a little rattled by that.

Want to see if your email address has been pwned? Try it here.

A Star is born

That’s right. We have a new Star in our chapter, recognized in Spokane during EDSymposium19. Emily Meyer, CDFA, of Bernardo|Wills Architects, PC received our chapter’s 2019 Star Award!

A graduate of Whitworth University with a B.A. in Sociology, Emily loves research and input. She is socially-focused and accommodating, putting the needs of the team above her own. She and her husband Wade are newlyweds, and are navigating the waters of marriage, home-ownership, and (cat) parenting with aplomb. Emily is a complete extrovert who loves building relationships.

We had to tell National SDA why Emily deserved the Star Award. Here’s what we submitted:

Emily represents the best of her generation. She is brilliant, hard-working, willing, savvy, kind, inclusive, and a champion for justice. In her short time in the industry she has already stepped out and:

  • Joined SDA
  • Attended an EDSymposium (EDS18 in SLC) on a Chapter scholarship
  • Lead a virtual roundtable for the Chapter that attracted attendees from SDA Chapters nation-wide
  • Served on the Chapter Nominating Committee
  • Facilitated SDA Seattle’s Better Business Book Club
  • Served on the Host Chapter Committee for EDSymposium19
  • Sat for her CDFA exam

All this while learning the particular ins and outs of the AEC industry, supporting a busy and growing office, buying a house, becoming a cat-mom, and being an all-around inspiring person.

If Emily represents the future of our industry and our association, the future is very bright indeed!

Congratulations, Emily!

 

 

Star image by Oberholster Venita from Pixabay

Seattle chapter well represented at EDSymposium19

At this year’s annual conference, 16 Seattle chapter members enjoyed the educational sessions, the networking, and the banquet that closes the conference. Sixteen — that’s a record number of conference attendees for our chapter!

Those 16 chapter members work at 11 A/E firms. Here we are, at the Welcome Reception held at Bernardo|Wills Architects’ office.

Bottom row, left to right: from DLR Group: Shannon Soady, CDFA; from Bernardo|Wills Architects: Emily Meyer, CDFA; from Gelotte Hommas Drivdahl Architecture: Linne Pullar. Second row, left to right: from KPG: Georgeann Smith; from MG2: Jessica King, CDFA; from Studio Meng Strazzara: Carrie Thompson, CDFA. Third row, left to right: from KPG: Terri Simms; from Studio Meng Strazzara: Kurt Wong, CDFA; from Sparks Management: Cathy Comstock, CDFA. Fourth row, left to right: from Berger Partnership: Stacy Rowland, CDFA; from Studio Meng Strazzara: Karyn Marks; from Bernardo|Wills Architects: Gretchen Renz, CDFA. Fifth row, left to right: from WSP USA: Judy Beebe, FSDA; from Pennell Consulting: Crystal Ray; from MG2: Laiisha Thomas. Not pictured: from Weinstein A+U: EB Meyer.

We were very happy that two of our Lifetime Chapter members were able to join us at the banquet: Virginia Hansen and Susan Vestal. Virginia served as SDA’s National President in the early 1970s, and Susan served as the Seattle chapter president in the mid-70s. Also at the banquet, our chapter was recognized for winning the 2019 Chapter Excellence Award; Emily Meyers was recognized with a Star Award and having achieved her CDFA (Certified Design Firm Administrator), and Judy Beebe received her Fellowship medal.

This year’s symposium was held in Spokane, Washington. Next year it will be held in Asheville, North Carolina. Hope to see you there!

You’ve got mail – now what are you going to do with it?

How many messages are in your inbox? 500? 1,000? Over 2,000? That’s a lot of messages to take care of! Sometimes you just feel like selecting all of them and pressing the Delete key . . . but you don’t.

If you need help getting your inbox organized and down to a manageable size, check out this upcoming webinar.

 

 

 

Image by raphaelsilva from Pixabay

We’re so excited!

We won – our chapter won the 2019 Chapter Excellence Award! One of the things that set us apart from the other Chapters’ submissions is that we offered 18.75 continuing education credits during the 2018 criteria year.

We’re still rocking . . . providing education and value to our chapter members and their firms!

A little Thursday humor

It’s Thursday, and a little humor / add a smile to  your face is in order. For all you A/E/C accountants out there, whether you manage the firm’s finances, or serve as the project administrator/project accountant . . . this one’s for you!