I am excited to release our first Southwest Regional Newsletter! My name is Ty Taylor, I am located in Norther California and I have the honor of being your Regional Board President for the 2020-21 cycle. We have started the year off at a fast pace and I want to share a few successes the Board has already accomplished.

First, I want to share with you my five goals for this year that I outlined and challenged our Southwest Region Board to tackle. The theme is Break Down and Build Up.

• Break Down the Boundaries
• Build Up our Students
• Break Down the Ladder
• Build Up our Chapters
• Build Up Mentorship

Break Down the Boundaries: In the last year many of us have hankered for collaboration and interaction while we have quarantined, some alone, in our homes. Something extraordinary was exposed due to the mandatory quarantine; nearly all of us in the education, planning, design, and construction world were able to continue our work virtually. The shift was swift and taught us all that the physical boundary of distance need not apply any longer. My first goal for our region is to continue to break down the physical distance barrier. How? Your Board and local Chapter Presidents are committed to sharing our chapter events with the entire region so that you can join any event from any chapter. We have established a protocol for chapters to announce their events so that we can publish them to you. Your chapters are also fully committed and many have started pairing with chapters across the region to put on some fantastic speaker sessions. We are excited to see the collaboration.

Build Up our Students: At our first Board meeting of 2021 the board took action to establish a Board Funded account specifically for SchoolsNEXT. This newly funded account will be used to ensure that the winners of our SchoolsNEXT competition, within our region, will have the adequate funding for both travel and lodging to the LearningSCAPES convention, each year. The Board will continue to fund this for approximately 5 years while searching for individuals or companies to become sponsors of the fund. We unanimously agreed that this commitment to our students will encourage more participation across the region.

Build Up our Chapters: At our first Board meeting of 2021 the board took action to establish a scholarship for the Advanced Academy (ALEP) program. The Board will distribute $2,500 among eligible candidates to offset the cost of the program. The minimum award for selected candidates will be $500. This is a commitment to our chapters to build your membership by encouraging applicants to apply for the ALEP scholarship and join your local chapter as active participants. Additionally, more funds will be provided each year to local chapters based on your total membership count. This scholarship and this funding will help build up your chapter. If you're interested in applying for the scholarship, please click here. Applications are due May 17.

Quickly, Build Up Membership and Break Down the Ladder. I will introduce these topics and expand on them in our next newsletter. I find that mentorship is one of the best offerings I have ever received from my peers. I believe that knowledge is something that can never be taken away from you, but it is worthless if not shared with other to experience. We have started to roll-out a mentorship program and we will continue to develop that mentorship program this year. More information will be shared at a later date.

Breaking Down the Ladder – I have had the pleasure of working with the organization for nearly eight-years. I started as a member, took on a chapter role, worked up to the chapter president, took on a regional position, and now I am the Regional President. Exciting, yes, but, I saw along the way that there are silos and many of the same faces. I want to break down the ladder of progression in our region and help sponsor new faces into our leadership roles whether it is your first day in the organization or your 35th year. YOUR voice is valuable and we want it at a leadership table.

Thank you for being a part of A4LE! I look forward to working with you!

Ty Taylor
A4LE SW Region President
Brailsford and Dunlavey
www.linkedin.com/in/taylorty

LEARNINGSCAPES CONFERENCE 2021

Mark your calendars for the Association's annual conference: LearningSCAPES 2021. This year's conference will be in person at the Grand Hyatt Denver, CO, October 14-18! For more information and to register for the conference, please click here.

A thank you to our 2020-2021 Steering Committee Members:

• Darlene Cadman, SPS +
• Kathryn Decker, Gensler
• Scott Sowinski, Orcutt Winslow
• Halleh Landon, Energy Systems Designs

Thank you to McCarthy Companies for being our first sponsor!

See you at our next meeting, May 25th at Noon MST (Arizona time)!

SOUTHWEST REGION NEWSLETTER                                              April 2021