A Note From The Chair

Mike Nowlan

This year is shaping up to be a great one, full of forging new relationships and rekindling ones that have gone “on hold” for a while! Many of our membership seem genuinely excited to get back to some version of unquarantined life! I do want to thank you all for making our 2021 conference a wonderful success. Thanks to everyone who helped plan and facilitate all the great panels and technical sessions, and a special thank you to everyone who attended the conference and helped support FMA. I must admit it seems a little strange for me for this issue of the newsletter. I have become so accustomed to “reminding” the chairperson to provide the introductory article for each newsletter that I felt like something was missing. Then I realized, I’m the one I need to be reminding! I am very thankful and excited to have been voted in as your current chair. Hopefully I can live up to the responsibility you’ve entrusted to me. Fortunately, I do not have to do it alone, as you’ve also voted in a great board of directors to keep me in line! Onward! As your new chair, I would like to share some of the exciting happenings. As I am coming to realize, everyone wants to share their greats ideas with you when you’re chair, and people have been busy. It’s almost like people have had some time to think, over the last year and a half. I would like to announce that we are ramping up to reboot the Sacramento luncheons, with in-person speaking and in-person eating, as early as in January! Carl Walker has been heading up that effort and the pieces seem to be coming together. Of course, we cannot supersede any requirements from your employers if there are any prohibitions to in-person meetings. You already know that the 2022 FMA conference is slated as in-person in Sacramento, so that’s not really news to you, right? Keep your eyes open for the invites coming your way. We are also working collaboratively with the IRWM Roundtable of Regions, and supporting them with their Virtual Summit on November 15-17. They are an organization of representatives for Integrated Regional Water Management areas throughout the state of California, promoting IRWM to increase self-reliance and resilience. I will be speaking briefly at their summit to discuss ways that FMA and their organization can share ideas and happenings. In fact, there is an announcement for their summit in this newsletter, so check it out!

SAVE THE DATE

IRWM Roundtable of Regions Virtual Summit – November 15 – 17 Venue - Online - See Flyer this issue for more details

Floodplain Management Association Annual Conference September 6-9, 2022 Venue – Sacramento Hyatt Regency

California Extreme Precipitation Symposium (CEPSYM) June 21, 2022 Virtual/Hybrid Options Are Under Review

One of our members facilitated the California Department of Insurance to attend our 2021 conference and they are very interested in FMA. Their office is recognizing the importance of accounting for climate change and how it affects risk moving forward, and looking to FMA to help keep them informed on the floodplain front. We are in early discussions, exploring the possibility of someone from their department becoming an advisor to the FMA board. We need to all get our arms around the issue of how the National Flood Insurance Program and private flood insurance can work for the benefit of the people living in our FMA territory. “Last”, for this newsletter at least, FMA has partnered with the folks at the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) to share newsletter articles. Lisa Beutler attends both FMA and AWRA, and she works on their magazine called “Impact”, and they just focused on flooding issues after attending our 2021 conference. She successfully encouraged folks to write some fantastic articles, which we will share with you with this issue and the next. Too much good stuff happening! Keep up the good work everyone, because none of this would happen without your contributions! 5