Connection
The year in review Boston Society of Architects emerging professionals What a difference a year makes. As I reflect on everything our local AIA chapter has accomplished for emerging professionals (EPs) during 2019, I can’t help but feel grateful for my cochair’s leadership and dedication, our extraordinary support at the Boston Society of Architects, and our membership, which rapidly expands. As the largest young architect committee in New England, our committee runs programming grounded in mentorship, knowledge, and networking that is always free and open to the public. Our network reaches over 2,500 peers, and with strategic outreach such as partnerships and livestreaming of events, this number increases.
50 participants. We deliberately schedule this workshop immediately before our largest networking event of the year, the EPNet Winter Warmer, where we partner with over 20 AEC institutions in the greater Boston area for a night of socializing with fellow young professionals. This year, the Winter Warmer had a record attendance of 300 and engaged architects, designers, developers, vendors, engineers, contractors, students, and more.
We kicked off our 2019 programming by hosting a “fireside chat” with three members of the AIA College of Fellows. Over cookies and hot chocolate, Jim Batchelor, FAIA, Anne-Marie Lubenau, FAIA, and Nancy Ludwig, FAIA, shared stories of their early years in the profession, most challenging and rewarding moments, and advice based on the audience’s questions. In line with this type of moderated discussion, we also held two more panels, one with local hiring managers and another with mid-career practitioners, where EPs learned about building up skill sets, approaching negotiation, and what they can expect after the first five to 10 years in practice.
With the intent to build upon the relationships that culminate every year in our Winter Warmer, our committee has diligently connected with emerging professional parallel groups such as the Boston Society of Landscape Architects (BSLA), the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES-EP), and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). We are in the process of developing programming that can weave in the interests of all our members while being educational and interesting. In 2019, we were fortunate to host the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) for an enlightening presentation on how EPs can get involved in the practice’s marketing, as well as the local chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI), on the important process of collaboration between architects and specification writers.
To prepare our membership for networking, we hosted for the third time Judith Nitsch, PE, who beyond her extraordinary career as her company’s founder, also teaches a terrific networking workshop. Her active, hands-on teaching style proves to be extremely beneficial time and time again: This is one of our most attended events, with usually over
Lastly, I can’t possibly talk about the EPNet without acknowledging the incredibly tight-woven network of practitioners we have in Boston and how their efforts to give back have helped our membership directly. Each of the past few summers, the EPNet has organized a program called Leadership Lunches, where local offices open their doors and
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