Hello everyone,

Over the past two years, I have taken every opportunity to exhort you to join our volunteer leadership at AIR, and for good reason. My last three years as a Board member, in particular the last two as the Board Chair, have been some of the most fulfilling professionally for me. 

Through my involvement, I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet some remarkable IR/IE colleagues and understand much more deeply everything AIR does to try and bond our data professional community together, provide professional development, and particularly as of late, advocate on our behalf. I’m proud to be a member of a professional organization with such strong executive leadership, dedicated professional staff, and fantastic members working to advance their institutions and organizations every day. 

I am so pleased that AIR has been my professional home for over two decades, and I hope my time on the Board has helped advance the organization, in at least some small way. If you enjoy any of the vast array of materials, services, or advocacy that AIR offers its membership, if you have met a colleague through AIR who has served as a resource, if you have been inspired by the work you have seen your fellow data professionals present at an AIR forum then I will, one last time, strongly encourage you to volunteer. Whether through the Board, the Nominations and Elections Committee, or another volunteer role, there are many ways to help support and shape this community.

I hope to see, or meet you, at the AIR Forum in D.C. I want to thank you all for the opportunity to serve AIR for the last three years, and I look forward to the next opportunity to do so again.

In the words of the strangely successful one-hit wonder Semisonic, “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”