GBA First Word - August
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[00:00:00] joel: Wow. It is a beautiful summer day. Hello, and welcome to the August edition of Gbas. First word, I'm Joel Carson, the executive director. And I'm excited to share with you what's been happening and what's ahead for our GBA community. In July, we released a brand new publication, best Practices for Crane Pad and Working Platform Design and Inspection.

[00:00:39] This guide helps our members to reduce risk and liability when working with crane and rotary drill rigs. It's an increasing topic in our field, and based on the downloads, there's high demand For this information. Please check out that new best practices document on our website. [00:01:00] It's free to all members.

[00:01:02] In July, we hosted the third session of our knowledge sharing webinar series. This time it was with Ctech. They introduced us to some new and exciting technologies, cutting edge innovations that are helping to shape the future of geo professional work. The knowledge Sharing webinar series happens the last Thursday of every month, and also it's free to GBA members.

[00:01:30] A big congratulations to the first graduating class of the early professional program, and welcome to the second class. They're just getting started. This program's a cornerstone of our career continuum, helping new professionals build strong foundations. And thanks to Brock Simmons, our subject matter experts and all of you who nominated Early Career Professionals to Participate.

[00:01:59] We [00:02:00] also celebrated some of our longtime contributors in our Geo Heroes podcast series in July. Guy Mark Cozi. Our past president interviewed Leo Titus and the dynamic duo of Tom and Grace Blackburn. Those were released in July. In August, we'll hear from Ken Johnston, another past president of GBA, and in July we exceeded 20,000 downloads of GBA podcasts.

[00:02:29] Thank you to everybody who's contributing to. Those podcasts. And for all of you who are listening on any platform that you receive your podcast, just look up GBA podcast. And yes, the GBA photo contest is officially open, but I'm gonna share more about that with you in a minute. And finally, we've opened nominations for the next Emerging Leaders class in the Emerging Leaders Program.

[00:02:59] If you know [00:03:00] somebody ready to take the next step in their leadership journey, now it's the time to nominate them. I'm a graduate of the program. There are many leaders throughout GBA who are graduates of the Early Leaders Program, and I suggest you look for the future leaders and get them into this program.

[00:03:21] I am sorry to cut into this episode of the first word, but I forgot to mention something very important. In July, GBA published our annual report for fiscal year 24 25. It's a comprehensive summary of the association's progress, impact, and direction. It was developed for the board of directors and our members.

[00:03:44] And the report reflects Gbas commitment to transparency and continuous improvement across all areas of our organization. This year's report details a strong year for member engagement, resource development, and strategic [00:04:00] progress. The report also includes plans for fiscal year 25 and 26, which is when we'll launch our new Emerging Leaders program, expand staff resources.

[00:04:14] Deliver additional career continuum courses and continue providing best in class resources for geo professionals. Now let's get back to GBA first word. Now let's look ahead to August. We're preparing a new business brief utilizing AI in your company to make sure your firm is adequately insured. Stay tuned for the final version of that.

[00:04:41] Another business brief about the Crystal Ball workshop that provides valuable resources and recommendations to firms that'll be published soon. We're also very close on a best practices document on laboratory information systems, a valuable resource for [00:05:00] firms looking to modernize their lab operations.

[00:05:04] Please mark your calendar. The annual financial survey deadline is August 14th. Participating firms will gain access to valuable benchmarking data to guide financial planning and performance as you're looking ahead for strategic planning or business planning. This is a great tool, but you have to participate to get the results.

[00:05:29] Gbas Book Club is meeting again this AU in August, so look for that on A GBA website. The photo contest deadline is August 31st. This year's theme is geo professional vibrancy, impact and professionalism. Show us how your team brings energy and excellence to the field through photos. And this year there's a video category as well.

[00:05:56] Please don't forget to register for the Fall [00:06:00] Leadership Summit. It's shaping up to be an incredible event and we'd love to see you there. That's in November in Denver, but now is the time to register and get your hotel accommodations. I also wanna highlight GBA news log through the creativity of some of our GBA members here.

[00:06:23] This soil composition report doesn't match what we expected in the client meetings. In an hour they'll want answers. Yeah, I think we really need to completely rethink our approach. So is there like a recent case history or precedent or something for this? Wait, Paul, Joel, tell him we need the solution now on it.

[00:06:46] Joel, we need the solution now in the conference room.

[00:06:55] Yeah, I got what you need. Get this REIA [00:07:00] asap.

[00:07:15] Perfect. Always staying on top of things with the news log, the GBA, everything you need to know

[00:07:29] the GBA.

[00:07:36] And thank you for tuning in to this month's first word. As always, thank you for being a part of GBA community. I look forward to talking to you again September [00:08:00] 1st.