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Energized, Excited & Support: My Time at the Chapter Leadership Symposium

Posted by Communications on Apr. 29, 2024  /  Subscribe 0

Hello! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Laura Frein, CPSM and I am the President-Elect for the SMPS Philadelphia chapter!

On Wednesday, April 17 through Friday, April 19, I joined more than 50 SMPS President-Elects (PEs) in Washington, D.C. for the annual Chapter Leadership Symposium (CLS), which is our preparation and leadership training ahead of our term as Chapter President.

For many, CLS is one of the most rewarding experiences of their SMPS involvement. I left feeling energized, excited, and supported! I hope you will take the time to read through my CLS experience but if you’re short on time, below are my biggest takeaways from my time at CLS.

• You are supported more than you know. Between the SMPS Board of Directors and SMPS HQ staff, there is a team of experienced professionals ready to jump in and help in any way necessary to make you, me, and our chapter successful!
• The SMPS community is our best resource. I loved meeting other PEs and discussing challenges of our chapters and sharing best practices. So many offered to setup a call and share their insight. While we span the entire country, the extended community of chapter leadership is just a click or call away.
• It’s time to invest in our members. SMPS Philadelphia and many chapters across the organization have plentiful reserves in our membership that we are looking to reinvest in. What does this mean? That’s for all of us to decide! Value is different than benefits, so we’ll be gathering feedback to determine the best way to reinvest in our members and provide you with more value.
• Know who YOU are as a leader. Everyone is different, and everyone’s leadership style is too. Identifying your strengths and areas for improvement, as well as building a board and committee volunteers to balance you will ensure a prepared and harmonious team.
• Every team needs strategy and succession planning. Whether it’s in your work life or SMPS life, a strategic plan and clear succession planning help guide you, keep you on track, and thoughtfully focused to achieve your most important goals. Who is our next generation of SMPS Philadelphia leadership? Maybe it’s YOU!
• Have a growth mindset. Growth means something different to every chapter, therefore one of my goals is to define what growth means to SMPS Philadelphia and use the answer to drive our strategic planning. Is it more members? More engagement from our current members? More volunteers on our board and committees? Expanding our brand throughout the Philadelphia A/E/C industry? There is no wrong answer, but all will lead to strengthening our chapter for years to come.

CLS Preparation: Cohort Team

My CLS experience began in January when we met our cohort leader and cohort team for the first time.  Each month we met to prepare for CLS and share questions and concerns.  Our cohort lead Michelle Erste, CPSM, a past president of the Atlanta Chapter, was so helpful in sharing her personal experiences of attending CLS and being a chapter president. While we were only together 30 minutes each month, the impact was significant! My cohort consisted of myself and Beth Etting of SMPS Indiana, Julia Pluff of SMPS St. Louis, Jason Dittrich of SMPS Maryland, and Lauren Long of SMPS Nashville.

The cohort allowed us to arrive at CLS to familiar faces and laid the groundwork for networking during our three days together.

Day 1

CLS programming started with a panel of the seven SMPS Board Members. Hearing from them was an important reminder of the volunteer efforts happening at a national level. Like our chapter board, the SMPS Board is comprised of volunteers who work to ensure the organization is engaging, inspiring, and empowering the membership. They were transparent, honest, and supportive. I left knowing I have resources available to help me on my journey as president, and the overall success of our chapter. I encourage you to visit the link above to learn more about each board member. I look forward to engaging them with SMPS Philadelphia during the upcoming program year. 

We ended the first day with a networking session. During that time I was able to meet so many of my fellow PEs, share ideas, and learn about different chapters across the country. I met Dan Confer from our neighboring Central PA chapter and was able to lay the groundwork for continued coordination in 2024-2025! From east coast to west coast, the chapters are similar in so many ways, and it was motivating to expand my network, develop new connections, and learn from each other’s best practices.

Day 2

Our second day was a full day of programming alternating between SMPS HQ presentations on important elements of leading a chapter and guest speakers providing insightful leadership advice and techniques. While the day was full, it was immensely impactful – with plenty of snacks to keep us focused!

External Speaker Sessions:
Harmonizing Leadership: The Melody of Success in Team Dynamics | Maisha Christian
Leading with Love | Craig Galati, FAIA, FSMPS, CPSM

Maisha used music to help us understand the importance of a balanced team, the importance of delegation, and recognizing that everyone contributes. One of my biggest takeaways stemmed from her question “How do you like to be appreciated?” To be successful, we must understand and recognize that each team member may need a different form of communication to feel appreciated.

Craig spoke about compassionate leadership. Expanding our understanding of others and taking meaningful action, when necessary, will lead to more open-hearted interactions, more positive relationships, and a more inclusive perspective. We all received a copy of Craig’s book “The Reluctant Leader.”

SMPS Sessions:

Governance | Tina Myers, CAE, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, SMPS HQ
Membership | Matthew McFadden, Manager, Member Management, SMPS HQ
Fiduciary Responsibility | Antonio Payne, CPA, CDE, Chief Financial Officer and DEI Advocate, SMPS HQ
Strategic Planning | Keelin Cox, CPSM, ENV SP and Valerie Puchades, CPSM, CLS Committee Chairs

Tina, Matthew, and Antonio covered Governance, Membership, and Fiduciary Responsibility. We learned key resources HQ provides to chapters like membership reports, membership demographics, governing documents, legal and regulatory compliance and much more! Serving on the SMPS Philadelphia board (or any organization board) is a great experience to understand how business functions. The lessons I learn during the upcoming program year will be called upon for the rest of my career. These sessions were also a great opportunity to hear how other chapters operate. I look forward to connecting with several PEs to share best practices and resources that will enhance SMPS Philadelphia.

To close out the day, our CLS Committee Chairs, Keelin and Valerie, led a session on strategic planning and daily execution within our chapters. SMPS Philadelphia does not have a complete strategic plan and it will be one of our goals for the upcoming program year to start the development of one. If you are passionate about strategic planning and/or want to have input into the future success of our chapter, please reach out to me to be a part of the process. The future of the chapter depends on our 140+ strong membership taking part in this important process.

Day 3

Our last day included two more external speakers and HQ presentations, including:

Managing Critical Conversations | Mary Abbajay 

DEI: Creating a Sustainable Future Through Equity & Inclusion | Mindy Gulati

Mary started the morning with energy, getting us out of our seats and practicing techniques for meeting engagement and consensus.  Her presentation centered around three main themes:

• Take the Lead
• Manage Participants
• Foster Healthy Dialogue

She provided new ideas for managing, designing, and structuring meetings for results and engagement; and helped us identify different types of meeting participants (I’m looking at you Larry Long Story) and how to best manage them (Land the Plane, Larry!) I look forward to using many of these new techniques!

Mindy reviewed the value of incorporating DEI into our chapter operations. This is an area where SMPS Philadelphia excels having created and provided DEI Membership Grants for the last two program years. We are currently accepting applications for the 2024-2025 program year! Learn more about the grant and our DEI philosophy here: SMPS Philadelphia - Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion.

SMPS Sessions:

Elevating Engagement: Learning, Networking, Communication | Natalie Gozzard, M.ED., Vice President, Professional Advancement, SMPS HQ and Nandi Rice, Vice President, Marketing, SMPS HQ

Natalie and Nandi led a discussion on chapter engagement which provided an opportunity for chapters to share their challenges and successes getting members to attend in-person events, volunteer, and join the board. We all left with many ideas, tools, and follow-up opportunities with other chapters.

Throughout CLS we heard from many members of the SMPS HQ team. If you haven’t attended Amplify (national conference) or a regional conference you may not be familiar with the many HQ staff, who are the heart and engine behind SMPS. They provide numerous resources to support the operations and success of our chapter and all chapters in the society. I encourage you to familiarize yourself with them and reach out if you have a question, concern, or idea. They are here to help us, and I look forward to engaging them more during my term.

We ended our time at CLS with a wrap-up discussion, Oath of the Presidential office, and received our official SMPS Chapter President pin. We traded a few last ideas, made plans for calls and collaboration, and headed back to our home chapters to continue our journey.

Closing Thoughts

With the new skills and understanding I have gained, I am confident I’ll have success leading SMPS Philadelphia for the 2024-2025 program year. Along with current President Diane Goshler, EIT, CPSM, we are committed to a seamless transition between program years, and continuing the engagement with connection opportunities throughout the summer.

I hope from my CLS experience you take away the value of SMPS as an organization and asset to you as a professional. Like all things in life, you get back what you put in. For the 140+ members of SMPS Philadelphia, we are proud to have you as part of our community and we need you to help us become the strongest chapter we can be. Please reach out ([email protected]) and say hello; tell me where we can improve; where we are excelling; or how we can make your membership the most valuable it can be.

About Laura B. Frein, CPSM

Laura serves as the President-Elect of the SMPS Philadelphia Chapter.  She previously served as the Marketing/Communications Director for the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 Program Years.  She is a past recipient of the chapter's Donna Keller / Cracked Bell Award. SMPS has helped Laura achieve two of her professional goals including becoming a SMPS Chapter President and winning a national Marketing Communication Award (2021, Trade Show Marketing).

Laura works at Urban Engineers, Inc. where she is the Business Development and Marketing Manager for the company's Surface Transportation Market.

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