METRO President Farewell Letter
Dear Members,
Our 2009-2010 METRO Season has come to a close and we eagerly look forward to the start of our 2010-2011 season this Fall. Reflecting back on this past year, it occurs to me that we as an organization met all of our key goals for the year. First we wanted to continue the great METRO tradition of having top-notch leaders in our field present to us on cutting edge topics. We feel we met these standards through the outstanding presentations by Kathleen Lundquist, Harold Goldstein, Bill Perkins, Anna Marie Valerio, Bob Hogan, Bill Byham, Nancy Tippins, Rob Kaiser, Bill Schiemann, Gary Hegedus, and Kristie Wright. Second, we wanted to make sure that METRO was restored to strong fiscal health. Due to rising costs, over the last few years METRO had been under some financial duress, but thanks to Scott Eggeben enabling METRO to hold our meetings at the NYU Wasserman Facility, and to our generous sponsors, METRO is firmly in the black and fiscally very healthy. Third we wanted to build on the momentum of 2008-2009 by bringing together many of our members for the talks and maintaining a level of energy and excitement at the meetings. We had exceptionally good attendance at our events and on multiple occasions throughout the year members approached me to comment on what a great “vibe” there was at the meetings.
Achieving these goals was due to the hard work of a very dedicated group of people. Charles Scherbaum did an outstanding job as the Vice-President and is poised to be a terrific Board President starting next Fall. Pete Rutigliano oversaw METRO’s return to fiscal health and will be the incoming Board Vice-President. Christine Fernandez was a welcome addition to the Board this year and did yeoman’s work as Board Secretary, all the while preparing for a new addition to her family. She will be our incoming Treasurer and has promised to keep us in the black. Michel Buffet continued his outstanding work recruiting sponsors for METRO. He was recently elected to serve on the Board as Secretary. We look forward to having him on the Board and continuing to benefit from his dedication and talents.
In addition to the formal Board members there are several people who need to be acknowledged for their valuable contributions to METRO this past year. David Mahl and Eran Arbel produced our newsletters and did an outstanding job. Thanks also to Naomi Rodolitz for her contributions to the newsletter. Johanna Seppäläinen spearheaded our event coordination and was responsible for the all the wonderful spreads we got to enjoy at each meeting. Terri Shapiro and Erica Rivera organized and ran our Career Day, which was another successful event. Ashley Busing and John Capman made sure the meetings always ran smoothly and all of the logistics were handled, and Cynthia Okamoto spearheaded our graduate student representative.
It has personally been a real pleasure having the opportunity to work with such a talented, capable, and dedicated group of professionals. My time on the Board has been extremely rewarding and has resulted in what are hopefully lifelong friendships with a truly great group of people. I’ve come to appreciate even more so what a treasure METRO is for all of us and our profession and I am confident that our continuing Board members will make it even more so.
Have a wonderful summer. I look forward to seeing you again when we kick off the new season.
Best regards,
Dan Fisher