1st Word - 07-2025 - FINAL
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[00:00:00] Joel: Welcome to the July 20, 25. First word, I wanna make sure that all of our members know what happened in June and things that you can look forward to in July. Safety is your top priority. It's our safe, our top priority as well. And June has been established as the National Safety Month by the National Safety Council.

[00:00:28] In support of safety month, GPA compiled a group of our resources that our members can rely on to support your safety initiatives. Please check out that list of safety topics that are available on our website. In June, we held our crystal ball workshop in Olathe, Kansas. And this was an opportunity to bring members from all across North America, 70 participants of the [00:01:00] workshop.

[00:01:00] We heard from seven subject matter experts on topics that address the shrinking workforce, the higher demand for our services, and how we can anticipate AI and automation will help support us in the future as we address those issues. The results of the Crystal Ball Workshop will be available to all of our members as a business brief, and that will be published shortly.

[00:01:27] So look for that. I want to thank everybody who participated in the workshop, especially our subject matter experts, the task force that had been working tirelessly for 18 months to prepare for it. And I also want to thank Terracon for opening up their corporate offices to GBA. It was a great event. And I'm confident that it's gonna provide really important information for our members.

[00:01:55] The GBA podcasts are continue to be published, especially that Geo [00:02:00] Heroes series. And in June, we published two new episodes, one with Rick Heckle, a senior leader from TTL, and a longtime contributor to GBA, and also an interview with Jesse Kaplan. Who is the CEO of Verdant? Both are really great recordings of Guy Mark Cozy.

[00:02:23] Our immediate past president is the interviewer, and those can all be found under GBA podcasts on whatever podcast platform that you listen, please check 'em out. Those podcasts are amazing. In June, we also held the second of our knowledge sharing webinar series. These are opportunities for our business partners to share important trends in our industry, especially related to technology.

[00:02:52] Those are held on the last Thursday of every month. If you haven't seen them yet, please check out our website where, where you can [00:03:00] sign up for the remaining knowledge sharing webinar series that will go through the end of the summer. What's happening in July. Well, first of all, our annual photo contest will be launched July 1st.

[00:03:16] We have a theme for the photo contest, it's geo unprofessional vibrancy, impact and professionalism. The photo contest starts July 1st. It ends August 31st. Thank you in advance to everyone who captures images of vibrancy, impact and professionalism, and submits them to the GBA photo contest This year, also in July, July 14th we partnered again with EFCG.

[00:03:48] They're a nationally known consultancy to the A EC world. We've teamed up with them for our annual financial survey. This is a confidential survey [00:04:00] and it's easy to fill out, and the results that you get back will help you to benchmark among other firms of similar sizes in the geo professions. So please look for that.

[00:04:13] July, starting July 14th, we will have a webinar that helps you to fill it out if you're not familiar with filling it out. And the results will be published to those who submit it, the data for the financial survey. So if you submit data, you'll get the full benchmarking document. If you don't, you won't receive it.

[00:04:34] So make sure your company's participating in gbas annual financial survey again this year. I just wanna let you know it's the last chance to submit abstracts for our 2026 annual conference. It ends at the end of July. So please make sure if you have a topic that you wanna share with other geo professionals in support of our conference theme to get your abstracts in by August [00:05:00] 1st.

[00:05:01] And lastly, registration for our Fall Leadership summit. That'll take place in November in Denver, Colorado. The registration is open. It's a low cost to attend and high impact. Lot of return on investment. Not only will our committees be meeting to work on their projects together, they'll be meeting with the board of directors.

[00:05:25] We'll have a workshop for everybody attending. We'll also have some really interesting keynote presentations. One in particular is the winner of the Woodward L Vote Project Excellence Award. So please plan on attending Gbas Fall Leadership Summit that takes place November, 2025.

[00:05:46] And this concludes GBA first word for July, 2025. Really appreciate you listening. Appreciate all of your support and I hope you have a fantastic summer. Thanks for [00:06:00] listening.