It’s hard to believe it’s already March – next thing you know it will be Spring, the weather will be dry and income taxes will be due – oh no!  Where is the time going?

Thanks to all who helped to make the PMI South Florida Chapter kick-off event of the year a fabulous success!  I’m pleased to announce that 196 people attended the February 7th Broward dinner meeting to Connect and Learn from the panel discussion on ‘Industry Wide Insights into Project Management Best Practices’. 

Our distinguished panelists included Sylvia Garcia from Stiefel, Mike Tainter from Forsythe Solutions Group, Fernando Martinez from Broward Health and Paul Fleming from the City of Boynton Beach.  The feedback was very positive – people liked the diversity of the panel and the insights and perspectives they gave to project management.  Thanks to the Forsythe Solutions Group for sponsoring the event and matching the books donated to the Book Drive to benefit the Big Brothers Big Sisters. 

The book drive was a great success; Adam Effertz of Big Brother Big Sister received 220 books for the kids!  What a great way to give less fortunate children an opportunity to read!  Thanks to the University of Miami, School of Business MBA students who gave a synopsis of their winning presentation in the Project Competition held in November last year!  Attendees remarked that it was refreshing to see how proud they were of their work and how delighted they were to be at our meeting.  Ah, future Project Managers.

As part of our effort to better serve our members to the north, we are holding a Dinner Meeting at the Marriott Hotel in Palm Beach Gardens on March 6th.  Bernardo Camarena, MBA PMP and Certified Integrator of mySAP in the Public Sector will speak on ‘Managing SAP Implementation Projects in the Public Sector’.  Please come help make this a big success and earn 1 PDU; details are on our website.

Be sure to sign up early for our first PMP Certification Prep course given on March 15 at BCC. 

We hope you will join us to hear Timothy Phillips, Security Director at Bayview Financial, speak at our April 2nd Dinner Meeting in Miami Dade and our April 3rd Dinner Meeting in Broward on ‘How to Manage great Security Programs’.  See details on our website soon.

Don’t forget to check out the details on www.pmi.org for the PMI Seminars World at the Sofitel in Miami in March 17 - 20th.

Don’t’ miss our sixth annual job fair planned for May 6th.  Kim Caruthers and her team led by John Lopez are doing a spectacular job again this year with the organizing of the free event for job seekers.  We still need exhibitors – employers, staffing companies and sponsors – so please check out our website for details!

You won’t want to miss our May 2nd Professional Development Day with keynote speaker, lunch speaker and 4 learning tracks.  Tricia Geary and her team are lining up a stellar roster of speakers and are still looking for sponsors and vendors.

Join me in welcoming Shea Heaver as our new VP of Communication.  He has big shoes to fill as he replaces Al Cacace who will be sorely missed.

As you can see we have a very eventful year planned!  Please let us know if you are interested in volunteering on a special committee or on the Board of Directors to help us achieve our goals through any of our volunteer opportunities on our website.

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