.jpg)
Platform Chats
Platform Chats
Setting Goals and Leveraging Opportunities for Success
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
As seasons change, so do the terms of Association Officers. On this episode, Walt chats with outgoing AREMA President Trent Hudak, PE, Director Engineering Services, BNSF Railway, and incoming AREMA President, current Senior Vice President Ray Verrelle, PE, Vice President Engineering Services, Amtrak. The trio discusses the importance of goal setting when taking on a new role. How a one-year term as president is a three-year assignment, so having a plan is vital. The importance of leveraging opportunities to make events more attractive and financially feasible for the industry. They’ll also consider how a mode of transportation as old as rail is surprisingly innovative and environmentally friendly. It’s an episode that touches on it all. It’s the last episode before the AREMA 2023 Annual Conference in conjunction with Railway Interchange. If there is anything keeping you on the fence about attending, let this be the episode that pushes you forward.
I think my platform, uh, I'm going to look to make sure that, you know, we're continuing to grow the educational opportunities in AREMA to bring the value to both our current members and then and attract new membership. I mean, one of the things uh that you know I think we all go through if we're registered licensed engineers is that um, at least I do because I'm probably a procrastinator, is towards the end of your uh license renewal, you have to go back and make sure you have enough PDHs and all of a sudden you're cramming to find content to uh you know get the get the however many PDHs you're short. You know, the AREMA conference is a great opportunity to get, I think it's 30 or 40 of the PDHs. And then there's also on our online content, we have you know some webinars and some other downloadable material. But I think you know, continuing to grow and make that attractive, especially in the the new generations that that that are are more technologically savvy than say me or Trent uh would be uh you know kind of what my focus would be.
SPEAKER_01You may know the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association, or AREMA, as the quote, keepers of the manuals. You may know them as the quote people behind the largest annual railroad conference in North America. In fact, you may not know about AREMA at all. This podcast is designed, no pun intended, to change your view of who AREMA is and how AREMA has changed the trajectory of many railway careers over its 100-plus year history. Welcome to Platform Chats with your host, Walt Lesser, where he takes a moment to discuss the impacts AREMA has had on the very people who are proud to be called members. Are you ready to roll with AREMA?
SPEAKER_02ARE Corporation is a proud supporter of AREMA and Platform Chats. If you are looking to take your railway structure's career to the next level, or simply start it down the right track, please visit us at ARECorp.com. Please see our brand new job postings on our careers page or on our LinkedIn page.
SPEAKER_03Uh, excited to be here and hosting the 27th episode, actually, year three and episode season three, episode number six, maybe five, six. Been a little late this year, that's my fault. Apologize. Uh year number three, life got in the way. And if you've been listening along in 2023 to the chronicles of my life, you know that I have had one heck of a time uh with my uh home. I've had some significant water leaks, and uh we are on the home stretch. I finally moved back into my house, and we got probably another three weeks of work, but it's nice to be back home and not out in a rental house. Enough about me that has really screwed things up. I apologize. It's made it tough to get to these podcasts and get them done without people hammering or making other loud noises in the background. So, without further ado, we are here today to do a bit of a passing of the torch. As everyone knows, if you listen to this or if you're in the industry, you know that the fall is somewhat it's probably my favorite season uh in the industry for railroading, September, October, November. Because we have our big conference, it's kind of like an old home week going back, seeing all your buddies, uh, watching the presentations, um, catching up with folks that maybe you see once a year. I know there's several people I will see uh that I only see them at Arima. Uh walking the expo floor this year also is a railway interchange year. It might be our last one, I believe. We can have Trent can maybe address that here in a minute, but that also gives an opportunity to see lots of equipment and uh other stuff that maybe you don't normally see at an AREMA show. So if you are on the fence about coming, I would strongly encourage you to come out to Indianapolis. It's a great venue, it's a great town for uh for the show. Uh it's a huge conference room, conference center, and uh great hotels, great restaurants, the whole nine yards. So if you have any anything that's keeping you back, uh let me be the guy that pushes you forward. So enough about that. Uh we will talk more about it a little bit later, but let's get into my guests here. Uh, like I said, I do have the current president of ARIMA, Trent Hudak, who is the director of engineering services at BNSF Railway. And joining him is Ray Varell, who is uh currently the vice president of engineering services for Amtrak, uh, but he is also a senior vice president uh with ARIMA, and he will be the incoming president of AREMA at the conference here in October. So welcome to you both. And Trent, I will have you start and just maybe just do a brief background on yourself. I know you've been on the show before. Uh my loyal listeners will say, Yeah, I know who that guy is. Uh, but there will probably be some folks that didn't hear that episode. So if you want to do a brief intro uh to who you are and how you got to where you are, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_05All right. Thanks, Walt. Uh, very much appreciate the opportunity to be on the podcast again with uh you and now with Ray. Um yeah, I've uh I've been in the rail industry for 38 years now. Um I've uh started uh out with the uh Berlin's Northern Railroad in Billens, Montana. And uh of course I'm now with Berlin's Northern Santa Fe when when uh BN merged with Santa Fe. Um and I've been primarily um in the uh engineering services uh fields of railway engineering. Uh most of my career. I've uh done a little bit of track maintenance. I've done a lot of track expansion work, and I've currently been leading the last few years the expansion and maintenance of our intermodal auto facility hubs along with uh a number of other types of facilities that uh generally support rail operations, mostly in the terminal locations. I joined a REMA. Actually, I joined the predecessor association, AREA, in 1988. And um and I wasn't very active at the very beginning, but uh through the earlier parts of my career, I began working with uh passenger programs on the BNSF uh network and uh needed to know a little bit more about passenger operations and what I may be concerned with and how those uh interact with freight operations. So um that gave me some motivation to get more engaged with ARIMA, and I joined Committee 11 and uh participated with them on uh very various activities there so that primarily as a learning opportunity. And of course, in my my in my later years with AREMA, I have been uh contributing uh uh more than more than taking from AREMA, which um I've been uh very privileged to do to do so, and particularly now in my leadership roles over the last uh last several years. Um so that kind of gives a little bit of a background of of of what I do and and uh my my engagement with ARIMA. Of course, I went the the the president's role is a three-year assignment. We start out as a senior vice president for for year one. It's kind of like uh the president's role with training wheels on and getting getting uh getting uh a pick a peek at how everything works, getting ready for that role. And then I'm in my second year here as president, and then the next year will be um there'll be the past president's role, which is uh primarily a financing and nominee committee type of role to ensure continuity on uh on leadership of the uh of the organization. Um so with that, I'll turn it back to you.
SPEAKER_03Perfect. That was great. And uh thank you for your service. So uh thank you for everything you did this year. Uh we'll get into that here in a minute. Um, but before we do, let's give Ray an opportunity to introduce himself. Ray, uh, how did you get in this industry and how did you get to where you are sitting right now?
SPEAKER_04Yeah Oh, thanks, Walt. Um, so I graduated Temple University in 1993, been in the industry about 30 years uh with a bachelor's of civil engineering. Out of college, I joined Gannett Fleming as a bridge engineer, and they also had a small group doing railroad electrification. And uh I got kind of pulled over when the bridge inspection and a bridge design unit was slow. I started doing design and catenary structures for a couple of electrification projects, and I kind of took a liking to it. Uh from there, I moved over to Amtrak in their electric traction group where I did uh I was a catenary engineer, did uh both design, and then I moved into construction, worked my way up through Amtrak to Deputy Chief of Electric Traction, where I had the whole entire electrification network under my purview, then kind of bounced around as deputy chief of construction, deputy chief of structures, AVP of engineering and design, and now currently AVP or Vice President of Engineering Services. As for AREMA, you know, from the get-go, when I started doing the electrification design, I relied heavily on the Committee 33 recommended practices. One being a new engineer in the industry. Uh, it was a great guide to understand, you know, what needs to be done in order to do an effective design, what things need to be checked. You know, that that the the volume itself uh gave me a lot of a lot of insight into the industry that you know some refer to as as black magic because there's not a lot of written documentation on a lot of different design parameters. Probably uh a REMA is one of the most well-documented uh uh practices and well-documented information we have in the industry. From there, uh, when I came over to Amtrak, I started maybe joined a REMA in 2006, and then a past president, uh Bob Verheli, who was my uh immediate boss, uh had he was he was the chair or vice chair, I believe, at the time, got pulled up into the leadership of uh the functional board. So I uh he asked me to step in and backfill his uh vice chair position. So then from there I served as vice chair for committee 33 from 2008 to 2011, chair from 11 to 14, then uh on to director PT from 14 to 16, and then vice president of PT uh from 16 to 19, where at the conclusion of my term, Beth said, you know, don't go too far. You may get pulled back, you may get the tap again uh a little later. So lo and behold, uh in 2021, I guess, 2022, uh I was nominated for senior VP, and here I am today.
SPEAKER_03And that does seem to be the way this works. I think a lot of people question, hey, how does this person become president? Is this random? Is this smoke and mirrors? But it seems like uh it's very much comes from a pool of people that were uh very active in a committee, right? Uh secretary, vice chair, chairman. Um, and depending on how active you are there and how much you enjoy it, etc., I believe you get nominated uh to be a director of your functional group. And you can that's a three-year term. And then uh once again, there you could have a gap year, potentially or not, and uh you could potentially serve as the vice president of your functional group, which it sounds like you went straight through all of that. And then once you're done with that, so to speak, done, you're never really done. Uh you kind of put your name in a pool uh of people to nominate for senior VP. And is that is that right, Trent? Is that how this works?
SPEAKER_05Well, uh an individual can always nominate themselves or or ask to be nominated, but uh generally we don't maintain a pool we you know formally, but we do know uh you know who has got the experience coming off the board of directors and and the senior vice presidents. And uh we of course have in the bylaws certain uh certain requirements uh for uh the senior leadership roles. And so the number one rule, of course, being being you have to be employed by a transit or a railway uh entity uh to move in move into the uh the top role. So um incidentally, we just completed a evaluation of our bench strength of our leadership here a few months ago, and we're actually kind of still in the middle of that, finalizing that, uh, to to determine and ensure that we have adequate qualified individuals to fill the uh senior vice president on through the president's position for for the next coming years. And uh it's looking really good. And uh so we know uh you know, we we know who the candidates are and and uh who likely would be potentially nominated in the future.
SPEAKER_03And it looks like so Ray went from 08 to all the way to 19. He was always held some sort of a position. Then he had again he had a couple years off here. Is that what you did as well, Trent? Did you go straight through?
SPEAKER_05Um pretty much straight through. I had a year off between the board of the senior senior vice president and uh excuse me, the uh board of directors, a functional group vice president and the senior vice president. So that one year there I did I did not have any official roles.
SPEAKER_03Okay. And so what does Ray have to look forward to as the senior VP? So uh what is his role in the organization? Maybe you could talk a little bit about what you did or a little lessons learned, maybe give him some tips?
SPEAKER_05Well, there's a whole bunch of questions in that question, Walt. I'll see if I can't uh answer some of them anyhow. So, of course, the president has the has the responsibility of oversight the whole organization and primarily is a supervisor of the executive director and the CEO. Um and uh he also is the uh the chairman of a number of committees, uh particularly when the board of governors get together. Uh the president presides over the board of governors meetings. Um one of the and there's other several other standing committees that uh the president serves on or chairs. Um probably one of the most most, I'll say, fun, fun uh responsibilities is getting that monthly article to RTS in uh to tell a little bit about yourself, a little bit about where the organization's at, or whatever else you you might like to uh to uh share with everybody. Um I actually had quite a bit of fun writing most of those, but they at the same time it was also a bit stressful at times trying to figure out well, is this the right thing to say and uh and how to say it, and and make sure you meet the timelines because you gotta you gotta be thinking ahead. So my advice to Ray is that uh have a plan, uh have those written ahead of time, so you take the stress off yourself and you're you're ready to just kind of deal a card when they ask for the next one. And uh here here you go, you're ready to go. Um I think the other the other really um fun opportunity is that I elected to take, and that is to interact with a few of the uh student chapters. Uh I started out um going up to the University of Illinois and uh participated in the uh environmental conference and uh on my own uh initiative to just help reinforce the relationship between uh Rail Tech up there and and the conference and and REMA. Um and that turned out to be uh just a wonderful experience. And then I was invited by a couple other universities to to uh to come out to their facilities, which I did, and had an opportunity to do to speak with some of the students and answer questions and and I found that very uh very rewarding to uh to help help all those students out.
SPEAKER_03Cool, excellent. And Ray, you were senior vice president this past year. Did you have a platform or anything that you would like to introduce as you become uh the president? Or is there is there anything that specifically that you were trying to work on with AREMA in the past year or in the coming year?
SPEAKER_04So one of the one of the things I got the the opportunity to do, and it kind of fell on me by chance, was the opportunity to host uh the P Reese event. Uh so that's a joint APT uh AREMA. Uh it's the uh passenger rail engineering uh education symposium. It's kind of like a a small technical, like a small version of the AREMA conference, but it's specifically targeted towards uh college professors and students to try and grow uh the organization, you know, the the industry via you know our our various uh universities and higher learning uh institutions. Uh so it was it was hosted by Amtrak. So it uh APTA and AREMA had asked uh our CEO at Amtrak if if we were willing to host. It's usually one of the passenger agencies, whether it be a class one passenger agency or a commuter, would host this this event. I think it's uh every other year. So our CEO asked if I would host it, and lo and behold, at that point I was also in the nomination for senior vice president, so I jumped at the opportunity. Um it was held in uh uh July, July 11th through the 13th, basically three days. We had some really good technical content as well as some uh field visits to both Amtrak facilities and and uh WAMATA was also our joint host. So we did we we hit both Amtrak and WAMATA facilities in the DC area, and it was I believe a very successful uh event. I I think you can go on the APTA website and download some of that content also. But uh so that so I think my platform, uh I'm going to look to make sure that you know we're continuing to grow the educational opportunities in ARIMA to bring the value um to both our current members and then and attract new membership. I mean, one of the things uh that you know I think we all go through if we're registered licensed engineers is that um, at least I do because I'm probably a procrastinator, is towards the end of your uh license renewal, you have to go back and make sure you have enough PDHs and all of a sudden you're cramming to find content to uh you know get the get the however many PDHs you're short. You know, the ARIMA conference is a great opportunity to get, I think it's 30 or 40 of the PDHs. And then there's also on our online content, we have you know some some webinars and some other downloadable material. But I think you know, continuing to grow and make that attractive, especially in the the new generations that that that are are more technologically savvy than say Mayor Trent, uh, would be uh you know kind of what my focus would be.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that's a great focus. Um, I think that's really been in fact, that's a great transition statement because I do believe the way we all receive our content is different and it's changing and it's ever changing. Uh I know when we used to go to some of these conferences, they handed out a CD with the proceedings, and that quickly became a USB drive, and then then I believe it's now just all downloaded, and now we even have videos of the of the presentations, and we've got, yeah, we obviously we learned a lot through COVID uh for sure on how to do this stuff remote. But the uh just watching how the proceedings is changing and the demand for webinars and seminars has definitely gone up. Uh and I think being a good partner with uh the different universities that are strong in that. Ray, I know uh University of Wisconsin-Madison does a pretty strong uh PDH uh credit courses uh for lack of a better term, and um I think Penn State I don't want to get this wrong, but is it is it Penn State Altoona?
SPEAKER_04Penn State Altoona, they have the rail program, correct.
SPEAKER_03Okay, and and Trent, you mentioned Railtech, right? That was University Champaign, Illinois and uh Michigan State, I believe, has stuff, and so there are uh there have been long-standing partners in and and ARIMA being supportive of that. I I I think that's a great platform and a great thing to be a part of. Um going into the conference, uh Trent, I did allude slightly to the fact that this might be our last railway interchange. I don't know if you know all the acronyms right off the top of your head. I know I do not. I can probably name a few, but in general, it is a coming together of multiple railway-focused uh trade and professional groups, yes?
SPEAKER_05Uh yes, the other organizations that part of Railway Interchange are are trade organizations, uh REMSA, RSSI, RSI, that represent the various segments of uh equipment suppliers and manufacturers, material suppliers.
SPEAKER_03And Ray, you're probably more familiar with RSSI and RSI.
SPEAKER_04Is that accurate or primarily AREMA?
SPEAKER_03You're primarily a REMA. Okay. Excellent. And then they all kind of come together into one gigantic trade show. We were doing that on odd years now, since for a while, right? I think.
SPEAKER_05Uh since 2011 we started that, I believe, is was the first rail interchange.
SPEAKER_03Okay. And this will be our last for the foreseeable future, uh, just for a number of reasons. I think one of them too is that Arima's growing and we had our own first uh uh non I gotta get this right too. Uh non hotel only conference was Denver last year. Uh talking with Beth was the first time we got to use a conference center. Or a conference room, actually a conference center, not as part of Railway Interchange, which was a huge op. It just it shows a huge uh shift in the number of members we have and the size of our show.
SPEAKER_05That's that's correct. Um we we've definitely outgrown some of those places we've we've uh used in the past. And uh the conference uh facility is is uh you know a nice place now for us to hold our conferences. Um you you ask about railroad interchange. Um yeah, unfortunately, um it's just not it's not financially uh sound uh for for REMA to participate that we we'd love to be able to support that. We we uh we understand the uh the advantages for our membership and and the industry to have all these associations all together. But uh in in in assessment, it's good it's costing it's costing our memberships, lost opportunities and and uh um other things that we can do with our resources um to in order to support rail interchange. So, you know, we might be able to make it work out someday in the future. Uh the way these things are because they're so huge, they're planned out so many years in advance, um, uh we may be able to make it work out, you know, but it's gonna be it's gonna be seven or eight years probably down the road before one potentially could happen, happen again.
SPEAKER_03Okay. And and yeah, I mean, I think when I started out, obviously you guys started way before me. Uh when I started it was Palmer House Hilton, and it was a relatively small show. Was where was it before that? Or was it always the Palmer House?
SPEAKER_05It was always the Palmer House as long as I can remember, and I don't you know the statistics there, but uh it's been it was there for a long time.
SPEAKER_03And that was a relatively go ahead, Ray. Sorry.
SPEAKER_04My first Areem uh conference was 2006 and it was at the Palmer House. So that's I can I can go that back that for at least.
SPEAKER_03Yep, I think I was there with you. And uh I remember that being a relatively small uh conference, and I remember the trade uh or expo hall. If you weren't careful, you might run into a column uh depending on which way you turned, if you turn too fast. And then I remember we graduated to the larger Hilton, um, and the Palmer House, for those that don't know, is in Chicago, and then the larger Hilton uh was also in Chicago, closer to uh the lake there, and that was a little bit bigger, but still similar issues. So it was really neat, I think. Just I I similarly have been going since about 05-06, and um to see what happened in Denver was was pretty cool to see how big we've grown. And so exciting for the excited for the future. So with that, the future, uh, either of you want to talk a little bit about uh the future of Arima, how you see it us growing, um, anything, honestly, open, open mic.
SPEAKER_05Well, I'll take a I'll take a stab at a few things first there, uh Walt. Um, so I'll first start out with saying that the association is in real a really good position for the future. We we spent a lot of time ensuring that we stay relevant and and that we meet the needs of our members and in industry as a whole. Um one of the efforts that uh I initiated at the beginning of this year, I set up the uh a um strategic planning committee. And it consists of uh myself, uh our executive director, Beth Caruso, as well as a number of past uh past presidents. And we we or we'll be re-re uh revisiting the strategic plan for REMA. We've already started that process, as well as addressing a number of other key things that we needed to set up our future for our future. Things like um updating some technical committee regulations. We got those approved by the board of directors. Uh we've evaluated the bench strength of our leadership team and future future team, and we're still addressing this question as how we can better support and engage uh non-railroad and transit employees into the REMA leadership uh model. Um, you know, that's under evaluation because uh how how our our membership characteristics are changing over the years here. But all of that uh associated with the strategic planning committee will will be a big step forward here, uh setting the setting the stage for the future, um you know, to stay focused on our mission, stay focused on our vision, and and and to deliver more value to our members. And of course, it'll also be very adaptive as as the industry changes. ARIMA is going to adapt, and uh we stay very in tune as to what's going on in the industry. Um we might be looking at some things of better ways of delivering our manual material. Uh the way we've always done it used to be paper, no longer it's paper, now it's a download. Um, you know, there are other options out there in the future as well, and and I will predict that we eventually will be doing some type of online uh uh delivery, um, much like other other industries do. So that that potentially could be in the future. Um you know, we're going to be continually focused on engaging with students, uh, much like Ray has already mentioned. Um that that we we have to stay focused on what their needs are on and what their their world looks like because they are our future. And uh if we don't uh attract them, uh support them with what they need and give them contacts and provide them networking opportunities in the in the in the industry, um they're they're not gonna be as successful as they otherwise could be. Um, we've we've always been talking about how can we uh better address the number one value that most members say that they get from AREMA, and that is the networking opportunities. You know, and so we've been talking about how maybe we can do that on a regional basis, how maybe we can do that at more more of a you know key locations across the US where we have a uh a large mass of rail expertise and and presence. Um so that would be an extension of what we're already doing with our with our conference and uh and other things. Um right around the corner here for the future is that there's a sustainability and resilience symposium that's going to happen in Tampa, Florida here on February um 5th and through the 7th. Um that's going to be very future focused. Um we spent a lot of effort this year under under my leadership with regarding uh setting that up. Uh and the uh I guess I'll say the advanced work of setting it up is uh associated with um the sustainability and resilience position paper that REMA adopted here earlier this year. Uh something committee 13 helped us write, and we've been discussing for a while and got approved by the board of directors, and that will kind of set the basic framework going forward as to how do we better address these two important topics in our manual materials? And that's predicted to be a long journey, maybe a never-ending journey of things that we need to be considering uh as you know our world changes. And um, so I think that's going to be a big, big focus area uh for lots of the committees and and and how the manual material is going to uh be enhanced and improved in in the coming years. Um maybe I'll just end it right there. That's more probably a longer longer question or longer answer than you were looking for, but give uh give uh Ray a chance to uh you know elaborate further on other items.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well thanks, Trent. Yeah, I mean, that's all excellent points. And I think now, I don't know, and I graduated as a 23-year-old kid in at a temple and got into the railroad industry, it was kind of a dying industry. It wasn't really didn't it didn't look like it had much uh growth opportunity, and then you you know, fast forward 30 years later, and I think there's there's growth all over. I think that you know there's a big recognition that that both passenger and freight railroad uh operations get both cars and trucks off the highways. I think that you know the push towards uh a greener, you know, more environmentally friendly modes of transportation is an opportunity we need to seize. And I think we're gonna see, you know, a lot more growth and a lot more interest from engineering students coming out of college because we're you know an age-old uh industry, but but yet maybe we're we could put a new modern twist on it and attract people. And hopefully that's what we can do with AREMA too, you know, provide that attraction for the younger generation through, you know, better uh methods to get our get our materials across, better educational opportunities that really help uh strike that interest in the industry.
SPEAKER_03And I yeah, and I think the symposium that's coming up to underlines what both of you said. Um, because I think that's going to be open to multiple functional groups, right? It it could be a coming together of not just one committee, right?
SPEAKER_05Yes, yes, the course, you know, we we set up a committee that is that is running the symposium, but uh committee 13 is is providing uh a lot of support for that, of course, because uh some of the base material there comes from from uh that committee 13, the environmental committee. Um, but that is the hope, and we've already reached out to uh all the functional groups. But the the hope is that uh every functional group will participate and um in both in presenting material as well as as learning learning about how you know through the symposium how they can better address these topics in uh in their manual material going forward and and in their everyday uh everyday jobs that they they all hold.
SPEAKER_03And I will also put in a little small pitch here at the end of that symposium. Uh let's see, is that the eighth and ninth? Thursday, Friday will be the first ever structures uh symposium. We're not calling it a symposium, we haven't really got a great name for it yet, but it's gonna be all of the structures functional group committees meeting at one time uh over a course of a couple days. Uh we're tagging onto that same venue in Tampa, which will allow uh prospective uh individuals to drop in on multiple meetings and see which one they like the best. Um we're we're trying this out for the first time. It was an idea we've had several years ago, and hoping that depending on how it goes, maybe other functional groups may follow suit uh and and see if that works to just any anything we can do to allow an individual to do to make multiple trips into one trip, uh if you will.
SPEAKER_05Exactly. Is that is exactly the the opportunity. I I kind of call it a super committee meeting, Walt, um where you get the entire functional group together. I I didn't nobody nobody's got a formal name for it, but you know, the whole concept here is that we leverage the opportunity to do two things in one trip. We also leverage a lot of the administrative support that REMA can provide, um, the membership to basically organize and plan one event, but we get we get two, we get two events out of one effort on the administrative side. So it's uh it's a really cost-efficient way and uh time-efficient way for all the all the those who want to participate, as well as those those that help uh help sponsor and put it on.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and that's a great example of of making it more attractive. You know, obviously a lot of these companies well, you know, we all have uh financial constraints on travel and stuff like that. But the to have two opportunities for you know essentially the price of one is a great way to bring people to these events.
SPEAKER_03Any uh as we wrap this up, any final pitch to uh for eat from either of you uh about the conference, stuff you can't miss, stuff you're excited about, uh keynote speakers, either of you know more than I do about what's coming up here in Indy. So I'll give you both that opportunity to give the pitch.
SPEAKER_04So I as as part of my uh uh obligations as the senior VP, I was on the program committee, so I helped put the program together for all the technical presentations uh Monday, all day, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I think we have 74 different presentations. I don't have the number in front of me, but that that sounds about right. I think the content, you'll be very happy with the content when you see it. And um I think uh you know we got it we got a well-packed show uh for you.
SPEAKER_05And I'll just add that on Wednesday we'll have again maybe our second second annual conference uh panel board on emerging technologies. I don't remember if uh if you all are gonna be hosting that, Walt, or if somebody else is gonna be hosting that. I'm guessing you're gonna host it, but you did last year and appreciate that very much. Um, but uh looking forward to that. Uh that panel discussion on Wednesday in particular.
SPEAKER_03Why, thank you. Yes, I will be hosting again. Um and we will be focusing on emergency. I will not give away what exactly what we're talking about just now, but uh yeah, it's uh hopefully gonna be as equally as engaging as it was in Denver a year ago. So thank you for that. Excellent. Uh any closing remarks? Did I miss anything from either of you? Any closing?
SPEAKER_05If we have a minute, Walt, I'll I'll add two two more comments. Um it's kind of in the categories of things I wished I had more time to work on while I was president.
SPEAKER_03There we go. Perfect.
SPEAKER_05Um you know, I uh the the you know the another advice to Ray is you can make it as you can make it a full-time job if you want to, but the trick is to you know, obviously uh put the right amount of time on it without with without uh consuming your day job, so you obviously can't ignore your day job while you're trying to uh fulfill your arrival duties. But um one one thing that we're we're looking into looking into uh piloting here this next year is how could we possibly utilize technical editors to support the committee work? Um we've been talking about this for a while. The the goal here is absolutely not to replace the committee work and not to replace the work that our members do, but but how can we make that more efficient for them and how can we uh help produce updated and new manual material that might be even easier and more efficient for the members to utilize by by using the the expertise of a technical editor in that somehow. So we're gonna be experimenting with that. Don't know if it's gonna happen across the board at some point in time, but but if it does look successful, that's something that uh I wish I had more time to spend on this year to promote that. But we we uh did uh we did make some progress on that, but um I'm really looking forward to how that might move forward in the next couple years. The other thing, um one thing I had set up to kind of to to focus on a little bit and just uh just ran out of time on that is REMA has been very good in the last number of years to becoming more more diverse and inclusive. Um in and but I think there's some more opportunities there. And I was uh and I I think we'll probably address this in our strategic plan update where we kind of set paths forward, a path and maybe some goals as to how we how we um might do some things that uh that uh help AREMA from from uh attracting membership and ensuring that we that we are we stay diverse, with that we are inclusive and that uh that everybody has an opportunity and everybody gets a voice, uh, even more so than they already have. I mean, I I don't feel like we fail what's all uh whatsoever. I just feel that we have more opportunities to improve in that area to make a REMA stronger.
SPEAKER_03There's always gonna be more that you want to get done, right? Um uh well, maybe Ray, that's a baton you can pick up.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, I I definitely definitely interested in continuing the uh the technical writer. I think, you know, and I've said it in some of our uh meetings that engineers aren't traditionally the best writers. We're better problem solvers and mathematicians than we are uh writing material. Uh I'd like to have that technical writer look over some of my articles because that that was a struggle getting my first article in and making sure that it uh read correctly and and and had all the right uh stuff. So uh, but yeah, moving moving forward with the technical writer will definitely be something I'd like to continue. Uh manual health. Trent did a great job with uh keeping after the groups to make sure our manual content was was uh up current and and updated. So I think I'll continue that. And then also uh, you know, I'll have Trent around as past president to help uh poke me in other directions, as well as Beth. I mean, uh you know, you definitely when Beth calls, I I answer because uh, you know, she has a lot of influence on on some of the things going on and definitely uh is a resource that I'm gonna continue to rely on.
SPEAKER_03Perfect. Well, I think there's probably no better way to end it. So thank you, Trent, for your service. I realize you will be going into a past president's role, but uh we appreciate your service. I appreciated your emceeing, your start of your emceeing last year. We'll see how well you do in India. I think you're gonna do a great job uh based on the limited amount I saw last year on stage. Uh and Ray, congrats to you and looking forward to spending the year working with you. I actually will be back as part of the leadership group, so I will be seeing you at the chairman's and chairladies meetings this fall and next June uh representing the functional group um of structures. So looking forward to working with you, Ray. And uh I'll see you both. Uh well, actually, I probably will see you both. Is it October 1st, I believe, right? We've got the uh REMA president's dinner on Sunday the the first there. Look up, that's always a good event, and I look forward to to shaking your hands, not virtually, uh, as they say. So with that, thanks. All right, we'll see you again. Thank you all.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for rolling with Arima on today's episode of Platform Chats. For further information about Arima, please visit arema.org or contact us at info at arema.org.
