Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/1410461
28 I PSAI Association Insight, September 15, 2021 President's Message By Jennifer Corrigan immediate response. Average people end their workday at reasonable hours. Our industry is NOT "average" that's for sure. • COVID…not that I care to ever hear or see that word again but it's the world we are currently living in. When we were forced to cancel the 2020 Convention and Trade Show in Baltimore, it was Karleen and her team that did all the legwork to present the board with our options for a virtual trade show. We needed to provide our membership with an alternative. Folks, that wasn't an easy task, period, let alone making it a success. It was Karleen & her team's first time pulling that off. Here is my COVID "glass half full" perspective" (other than I now take a wide range of vitamins every day) ... I do like the virtual face to face zoom meetings and the virtual roundtables we now utilize within the PSAI vs our pre-COVID conference calls. I could continue listing item after item, but this is supposed to be an article, not a novel. Karleen, thank you for all the accomplishments you have worked so hard for the PSAI to achieve. We are sincerely grateful. As you close this chapter in your life, we hope you will find yourself going back to skim the pages (so to speak) and remember our unique group of individuals. Thank you again and best of luck to you and the next chapter. We have certainly been in a crazy whirlwind these past 18 months. I hope this message finds all of you healthy, safe and in good spirits. My message today serves two purposes. My years serving you and my fellow board members have been an honor. I feel I have contributed to our association while learning at the same time. Granted when I moved into the Board President role, I had no idea we would have been hit with a global pandemic. Though I was ready for the task, I worried I would fail my PSAI family. I am surrounded by many amazing colleagues and couldn't ask for a better group of professionals. As each year passes, new board positions become available and it's time for fresh set of ideas. We are approaching a new board election year. I encourage anyone passionate about our industry to please consider running for the board. You will be glad you did and so will our colleagues. As most of you know, Karleen will be leaving the PSAI effective September 17th. What many of you may not know is all the behind the scenes work Karleen has done to provide our Association the resources we need to better our industry. I'd like to highlight a few areas. • We have training courses, certifications, and multiple resources for our membership to utilize. Together with all the committees we have in place, we have truly become a powerful association. • How about those creative sarcastic "journalists" that like to write negative articles about the unpleasantness of portable toilets? Who knows to even look for that stuff anyway? … Karleen of course!!! Karleen has addressed just about every negative article/blog written with those individuals who wrote them. The best part…those folks got a lesson or two and most likely felt remorseful for attacking our industry. • I can't even count how many times I have emailed Karleen late at night with an idea or I needed a question answered and sure enough, I always received an