Letter from the Chair

Dear Colleague:

Welcome to the AFE Foundation. Let me take this opportunity to update you on our exciting new direction. Thanks to your support and guidance throughout the last year, our Foundation has made changes that will positively impact achieving our goals of providing educational opportunities in for facilities engineering field and promoting our profession to the larger community. Today, the composition of the AFE Foundation Board represents a broad range of professional expertise and knowledge from within our organization and beyond, providing diverse insight. This insight allows us to leverage best-of-breed solutions practiced by other Foundations and apply them to new projects, and to create a strong position for future opportunities.

We are excited about our new partnership with Mentornet.org the E-Mentoring Network for Diversity in Engineering and Science. This partnership creates an opportunity for all qualified individuals to become a mentor to students in partner schools and organizations and clearly differentiates AFE as the organization of choice for students looking for a mentoring opportunity. I urge each of you to talk at every Region and Chapter meeting about how this alliance provides the opportunity to grow our student chapters.

We are excited about the revitalization of the AFE Foundation educational giving. While our Chapters have given away tens of thousands of dollars in educational scholarships and grants over the past years, we have not yet sustained a national push to complement the Chapter efforts.

New this year, we are initiating an annual program that provides two grants. One grant provides an opportunity to attend the AFE Facilities America and the other will support a candidate for Certification training and exam. Both of these grants provide the AFE Foundation focus on helping the next generation of facilities engineering professionals by creating an encouraging educational experience.

Further capitalizing on best practices in grants, we are actively soliciting to build our scholarship fund so that next year we can give away student scholarships and more certification grants. We are counting on you to help the AFE Foundation further the creation of the next generation of professionals by contributing your time or financial resources to the AFE Foundation.

To make a financial contribution that will lead to opportunities for the next generation of our profession, click here.

If you can't financially contribute to the fund, just talking about it at your meetings and company can help further our profession. I appreciate your support and commitment to the AFE Foundation.

Please feel free to email me if you have any question or concerns.

Sincerely,

Kate Kerrigan, CPMM
Chair, AFE Foundation