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From the President, November 2002
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Changing Times and the RecordWe all have had experiences in which we are faced with a new beginning. It has occurred when we have career events, such as, acquiring professional certifications and licenses, receiving promotions, starting a new job, or possibly relocating to another city for work opportunities. It occurs in our personal lives with starting a family and each of the myriad of milestones that occur until the cycle begins to repeat when our offspring begin to start their own families. Although each and every one of these events command our full attention during their occupation of present time, they begin to fade into a collection of memories, both pleasant and some maybe not so pleasant, that form the pool of our experiences. As we continue to live our lives, we eventually look back and wonder how these events could have occurred so many years ago since we still remember these events as if they had occurred just yesterday. It was probably early in my second grade year in elementary school when I started to think that I had this school education deal just about licked. Reading no longer required pictures and a good memory, math would soon be mastered after writing a few more pages of multiplication tables, I could make cut-out decorations for every holiday, and I knew all three US presidents in order, Washington, Lincoln, and Kennedy. (Didn’t quite recall seeing Lincoln at Kennedy’s inauguration.) How were my teachers going to come up with anything new to teach me for the next 10 years? My grandmother, born in 1886, did add an interesting dimension to my early history education. Since all of my questions started with, “Grandma, when you were a girl… Who?... What?... Where?...”, I felt as though I was getting a glimpse of life as a child at the dawn of time. The changes that occurred in my grandmother’s lifetime were incredible. The questions that I would ask now would be very different, and a record of those responses would certainly be worth keeping. If you have made this far, grab another cup of coffee while I try to wrap this hummer up. The Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter of CSI is a little over 5 years away from celebrating its 50th Anniversary. It may be a little early to have our orders in for cake and champagne, but it is not too early to organizing and documenting the history of our Chapter. We have members that have been involved with the Chapter since the beginning, and we have members that have joined the Chapter in nearly every year of its history. When you consider how the construction industry has evolved from 1958 to 2002, it is astounding. We may use the same basic materials that we have used for thousands of years, but the building systems and tools have changed dramatically. Even the basic materials have been modified to perform in very different ways. Mimeographs, copiers, faxes, scanners, digital cameras, linen, sepia, overlay drafting, computer aided drafting, calculators, computers, word processors, cell phones, PDA, GPS, and the Internet are just a few areas of change. We have become so accustomed to the innovations is the construction industry, that it is hard to imagine the times before they existed. This history is woven into the fabric of our Chapter. Before we lose our ability to capture it, the Board will explore ways to start collecting and documenting this information. If you have information that would be of historical value to the Chapter, please contact me. We will look for ways of recording, storing and/or duplicating this valuable data. We don’t expect to have the complete history of surrounding our Chapter and its members overnight, but it is a start. With your help, we will get a clearer picture of “then”, which usually helps us see “now” with just a bit more wisdom. Kermit Duncan, CSI, CCCA, AIA |
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