President’s Message

2025: A New Chapter for NE-SFMA

Hello members and friends,

Welcome to a New Year and a new chapter of this historic association!

Thank you for your trust to lead this organization and continue the tradition of offering valuable networking opportunities and support to inspire the next generation of sports field professionals. A thank you to Chris McGinty for his service to the association as President for the past four years. Chris moves to Past President, and I will value his guidance as we progress with new NE-SFMA initiatives.

We hope to see you at the New England Regional Turfgrass Conference, March 4 – 6, 2025 in Providence. Past Presidents of NE-SFMA Ben Polimer and Mike Buras serve on the Regional Board and represent our association’s interests. Ben has been developing a great line up of presentations and the NERTF board never fails to provide a valuable and professional event. Please mark your calendars and plan to join us for our Awards and Annual Meeting on Wednesday, March 5 at 11:00 a.m. More details on page 10.

For 2025 we welcome a new Board of Trustees for the Association’s Trust Fund. Victoria Wallace will continue to serve as trustee and we welcome new trustees Ed Olsen and Mike Lueders. These folks play an important role in providing financial and strategic guidance for NE-SFMA. The Board of Trustees also includes myself as President and Andrew Carlisle as Treasurer in order to ensure continuity between the Association and the Trust.

FOMO ALERT! For those who could not attend our meeting this past December I am sorry. It was a very fun and historic day. Thank you to Jay Rourke for the once in a lifetime tour of the New Balance TRACK facility in Brighton, MA. The value of this facility to the community is just amazing and we even saw Olympic runners at practice! In addition, a thank you to the Stockyard Restaurant where we enjoyed a great meal, entertained by the legendary Tom Caron, NESN’s host for Boston Red Sox coverage. As a special treat and impromptu surprise for Tom, Hockey Hall of Fame player and referee Paul Stewart interrupted us! A great day and the type of experience I hope we can provide and share with our members throughout the region in the years to come.

As your new president, I will end with a call to action for all of us. Support this great organization as best you can and stay engaged. If you would like to support a current committee, or join the Board of Directors in future years, please let us know. Finally, know that our greatest influence and power comes when we gather to celebrate, learn and inspire.

A belated New Year’s toast… to you, the next generation, and our prosperous future!

Cheers,

Art Goodhind

NE-SFMA President