President

Craig Mount,
CSI, CDT, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP

 
WEST REGION CORNER
Febuary 2012 

Thank You:

To all of the hardworking volunteers of the Chapters,

You are the lifeblood of CSI and what makes us relevant and useful to our colleagues in the industry.  This cannot be overstated. You are all about SERVICE. It is this service and passion for improvement that leads to the new ideas and programs within CSI, helpful educational seminars, much-acclaimed certification programs, promotion of better industry standards, MasterFormat, UniFormat, dinner meetings, our camaraderie, shared learning, and sincere caring for our members.    

Announcements and Important Dates:

West Region 2012 Conference – April 26-28, 2012, Dolce Hayes Mansion, San Jose, CA.  Mark your calendars now. 

Spring WR Board of Directors Meeting – Thursday, April 26, 2012, 9:00 am-4:00 pm, at our West Region Conference, Dolce Hayes Mansion, San Jose, CA

Spring WR Members Meeting – Saturday, April 28, 2012, 1:00 pm-2:30 pm; at lunch at our West Region Conference, Dolce Hayes Mansion, San Jose CA 

Spring WR Speak-Out – TBD, tentative at WR Conference, San Jose, CA

West Region Leadership Workshop, Northern California – TBD (hopefully before March 2012) ** We are just waiting on someone in one of the Northern Chapters to champion this event. The program will be very similar to the Leadership Workshop in La Quinta last fall and the speakers have volunteered to do it again. The champion just needs to arrange an acceptable date, location, other logistics, and arouse some passion for it from the chapters. We have plenty of people to help the champion.  

A Few Thoughts

In my last article, I expressed my view that the best gift to give at Christmas was our time and caring for those we love, and even for those we may not know very well, like the elderly neighbor.  I hope you had a chance to do that in December and felt the richness of sharing.  I know it is not always easy to do.  Family and relationships can sometimes be challenging, to say the least.  But that is all the more reason to do it and thereby we learn, build and grow ourselves.  It also helps to have sharing relationships with friends – a support group if you will. So if you did not reach out very much in December, that’s ok, go ahead and do it now. It is never too late to show you care. (Yikes - I am starting to sound like a Hallmark card.)  

In July, Dave Willis will become your West Region President.  This is an excellent time to talk to Dave, or any of us Region officers about what you would like the West Region to be doing, and how you can help. Most of our Region committees have been a little quiet this year and would love to have your ideas and participation.  In CSI, I believe a Region’s main goal is to support the Chapters in any way possible. To me, this means leadership training, hands-on attention, sharing education and certification seminars, promoting good dinner speakers, and being a wonderful resource for  ideas, expertise, support and encouragement. The leaders and committees of the Region are here to listen and to give back.  But honestly, we need a little help.  So consider giving us your requests, ideas, a little time, and some participation.  I believe a Region committee can do a lot of good if the members just devote 4 hours a month.  So please call a committee chair (listed on the West Region website – www.csiwestregion.org ) or me, and we will do it together.

With warmest regards,

Craig Mount, CSI, CDT, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP
Region President

WEST REGION CORNER
 January 2012

Greetings from the Desk of the West Region VP.  I hope that you have all had a very Merry Christmas and ushered in the New Year on a positive note. This months Corner will be short and sweet as I am in the middle of moving to a new home on December 23^rd.  Things are a little hectic around the house this week.  I have been able to participate in a few northern chapter holiday get togethers.  Fresno Chapter joined together with AIA, SELSOC, NAWICK, USGBC and the Local Builders Exchange for a wonderful evening at the Fresno Art Museum for some finger food and fruit of the vine.  I was able to spend a great evening with the Santa Clara and San Francisco Chapters as they joined together in San Mateo for a fun evening of great food and some dancing.  I think it a wonderful idea for groups to come together during the holidays.  

There are a few activities coming up in the West Region I need to fill you all in.  We are in the planning stages of having a Leadership training Conference in the north very similar if not the same as the one held in Palm Desert last year.  According to Craig, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  Joy Davis from Institute will be back for the northern Leadership Conference.  Joy was an inspiration at the southern Conference and I look forward to learning more from her when she returns.  We are currently looking for a conference venue and will keep you all informed.  The Bi Region conference in 2013 with the North West Region looks like a go.  We have been in contact with the Spokane Washington Chapter conference committee and will be discussing how the West Region will fit in.  Providing some speakers and help with hospitality has briefly been discussed.  If anyone is interested in participating on the committee for the Bi Region conference, please let me know.  As I receive more information, I’ll be sure to pass it on to you all.   

As mentioned in my last Region Corner, there is an event coming up in Sparks Nevada that will involve the West Region.  The Associated Schools of Construction, student competition will be held from February 8 thru 11, 2012.  West Region and the Institute will jointly fund a CSI booth during the competition to promote membership in CSI.  Many corporate sponsors will be there and we hope to generate interest from them all in CSI.  Duane Johnson has been a strong proponent for this event and has agreed to lead the CSI team that will staff the booth.  Duane is now communicating with the folks in charge and hopes to provide speakers from CSI at the competition. If you are interested, please contact Duane.  His number is 916-362-6303. 

Please remember the 50/50 membership recruitment program is on again thru next July 1^st.  Plan to apply for the program to share at one of you chapters events. 

That’s all for now.  I hope everyone is doing well, and I hope to see you all when making my annual Chapter visitations.

Respectfully Submitted,
David A. Willis, CSI, CDT, CCCM
West Region VP

Director West Region 

Steve Nash,

 CSI, CCS,CCCA, AIA, LEED AP

WEST REGION CORNER
December  2011 

Once again the holiday season is upon us.  As we mark the end of the year it provides us an opportunity to reflect back on what has past and to the future and what the New Year will bring.  For many of us we will be contemplating our New Year’s Resolutions.  Yes it’s time to indentify that list of resolutions for a brand New Year that will unveil a healthier, better organized, stress free, wealthier, slimmer, new and improved version of ourselves.

As we all know identifying the resolutions is a piece of cake.  Determined as we might be at the stroke of midnight, too often the vision of what we want to be fades as we focus our attention to creating excuses and explanations for not following through.  The conviction behind the resolutions quickly fades.  The failure of achievement is comforted only by knowledge that we share the failure with most everyone foolish enough to make resolutions.  In fact one poll indicates than fewer than 12% of those achieved their New Year resolution goals.

You could look at these statistics and determine that with such a high failure rate it’s not even worth trying.  But what if there was a way to dramatically increase the odds of following through on your New Year’s resolutions? 

For most our limitations of willpower do not give us a fair opportunity of success over a long list of resolutions.  To achieve better success, some advise that spreading the resolutions out over the year to provide a better opportunity to concentrate on each resolution.  It only make sense that focusing on one goal such as losing weight should be much easier to accomplish than trying to lose weight, eat healthy, drink less, quit smoking, and reduce stress all at the same time.  So the savvy limit their list to one resolution.

To further increase your chances of success you must look at the resolution.  Obviously the more difficult the resolution is your chance for success will decrease.  A resolution to end hunger in the world, although extremely laudable would be impossible even for Bill Gates.  In comparison it would be very easy to forgo eating a meal out once a month or week and donating the savings to a charity that feeds hungry children.  It only makes sense; a successful resolution must be within your ability to achieve.  The easier the resolution the higher the rate of success.

So now you know to create a one single easily achievable New Year’s resolution.  By reducing the list to only one resolution you will want to maximize the benefits of that single resolution.  Naturally who wouldn’t want an easily achievable resolution where you:

·        Develop new skills

·        Augment your stature and credibility

·        Enlarge your network

·        Enrich your sense of purpose in life

·        Increase your marketability

Well, you can realize all of these benefits and more with one New Year’s resolution!  That’s right, simply resolve to volunteer for a CSI chapter, region or institute committee or task team and reap the rewards.  In fact there are studies that show volunteering also improves the health and well being of the volunteers.  So forget that fad diet New Year’s resolution.  You can resolve to help out on a CSI committee and get healthier at the same time.

The fact is most everyone I know who has volunteered for CSI remarks on the valuable experience and have extolled about getting much more back than what they put in.  I could not agree more.  I have really enjoyed my experiences on CSI committees and found them to have benefitted me professionally as well.  I won’t go in to how my health has improved but I have met a lot of fascinating friends not to mention a number of characters as well.

There are a lot of different volunteer opportunities available.  Most of these only require a few hours a month.  For those of you who have volunteered at the chapter level, I urge you to consider a region or Institute committee or task team.  Find out more, talk to a CSI member who has served and find out what it takes.  Feel free to get in touch with me if you would like.  Then make that resolution to volunteer for CSI, you won’t regret it.

Here’s to the new and improved you!  Happy Holidays!

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