Message from National BDPA President

Monique Berry

Thank you for the opportunity to lead BDPA and for your patience as I grew in my position. I hope that during my term I have been able to make a positive impact on both the current and the future of BDPA. This is definitely one experience I will never forget!

As I write this letter as President, I want to highlight several goals and significant accomplishments of the past two years:

GOALS:

1. Reduce operational expenses and increase revenue;
2. Expand our membership base by 25%, including reaching out to college students and building relationships with college administrations;
3. Collaborate with other organizations and associations to further our organizations mission and goals;
4. Engage our members with regular communication via social networks, BDPA Today and BDPA iRadio;
5. Listen to and involve our members by holding periodic national conference call meetings; and
6. Advance professional development by offering cutting edge seminars and panels during the annual conference.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

• Reduced office space at savings of $84,000;
• Renegotiated our conference contracts saving more the $500,000 in attrition fees;
• Increased membership by more than 32%;
• Developed new strategic relationships with:
• American Association of Blacks in Energy
• Clemson University
• Howard University
• Mexican American Engineers and Scientists
• National Center for Women & Information Technology
• National Organization of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers
• National Organization of Minority Architects
• National Society of Black Physicists
• National Technology Association
• Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science
• Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
• University of Phoenix
• Increased member communication via Blog post, Diversity Careers magazine, direct email, Facebook, Twitter, Groupsite, Instagram and Pinterest
• Guest appearances on BDPA iRadio by several National Board members
• Introduced the annual Lifetime Achievement Award
• Registered BDPA as a Certifying Organization for the President’s Volunteer Service Awards
• Increased member education offerings
• Agile Scrum Master certification class
• CISSP prep classes
• Career Triage classes
• STEM Online Simulations

2012 Nat'l Executive Committee

My journey in leading the Association wasn't done alone. I was accompanied by a team of dynamic individuals, both elected and not, who shared in our successes and learned from our failures. So I would like to take this opportunity to thank a number of people for their hard work and dedication, and without whom running the Association wouldn't have been possible. 

I thank the dedicated members of the Board of Directors, National Executive Committee, Conference Team and the Board Development/Governance and Bylaw Committee for their support over the past two years. I am proud of their accomplishments, as we all strove to support and actively engage current and future BDPA members.

I would be remiss if I did not recognize the true heroes of this past two years, our dedicated chapter leaders, committee chairs and their volunteer members. There are not enough words to express my thanks and appreciation of these great leaders. For without their passion and undying commitment to devote thousands of hours of volunteer service, we could not have begun this journey of transformation or achieved any of our goals. Embracing change is difficult and these change agents never lost sight of our strategic direction, even when the road to success got bumpy or was detoured.

My sincerest thanks to our headquarters team: Lesley Menor for her tireless work managing our daily operations, Wayne Hicks for managing our sales and sustaining sponsor relationships and Natasha Banks-Pronsati for taking care of finances. I am certain that we can count on their valuable support of BDPA next year.

But most importantly, my thanks go out to you, the Members, for all your support during these two years of change. For without you, BDPA would not exist. It has been my pleasure to serve you. It has been a pleasure working with talented, capable, and dedicated professionals while serving your president. 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 more what a treasure BDPA is for all of us and our corporate partners; and I am confident that our continuing Board members will grow the organization to new heights.

In closing, I have one final request. I ask that each of you pledge your continued support to BDPA and help our 2014 leaders continue the journey to deliver the success our Association deserves.

As you know, we can do this - but only Together!

Happy New Year!  
Monique Berry, President
National BDPA