CSI New Jersey Chapter
President’s Message
Hello everyone. Summer is over, the kids are back to school, the golf season is over, and now we can concentrate on our career, community work and most importantly catch up with chapter associates…..

As I step into my term as President of the Chapter, I would first like to thank Jerry Heininger, our Past President for giving our Chapter a great 2 years. Jerry gave me the opportunity to work very closely with him which has given me a head start in my new role. My role as Region Secretary has given me increased opportunity to share best practices and better communication between Region and local Chapter.

In April of this year, our past Board invited a few leading members of the Building Industry to identify the needs of the construction industry as it relates to our Specification Institute at the local Chapter level. 2 major issues came up- firstly communication and secondly better preparedness of young professionals. This very much echoed the needs identified at the National and Regional level of the Construction Specification Institute for which many programs have been crafted which our chapter can implement at the local level.

This year I would like to focus my attention to the three C’s -Communication, Collaboration and Cooperation.- between  members and the various facets of the building Industry. This shall be the underlying theme for all our meetings.

Our first goal this year was to develop a Website for our Chapter, which we have been able to roll out to our members. Our past Board had successfully collaborated with the four Chapters of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) of New Jersey. We will continue to hold joint meetings with them. This year we have also joined hands with the Design Build Institute of America (DBIA). We have plans to collaborate with some of the academic institutions of New Jersey.

The Master Format has 48 Divisions out of which there are 34 Divisions which are titled. Our aim is to have our website provide local New Jersey experts for each of the titles through our membership. I therefore urge our members to visit our website and provide us with pertinent information. I will also request our members to bring in at least one new membership from any of the fields that relate to you. Our AIA/CEN seminars at the general meetings shall be geared towards Communication, Collaboration and Coordination between related divisions or trades.

The membership makes up the chapter. We can only thrive with membership involvement. So, any form of feedback will be highly appreciated. Please reach out to me if you would like to be involved.

Looking forward to a great year ahead!!

Ruma Som, CSI, CDT, AHC
President CSI NJ Chapter