08.01.12

President's Message, the New President

(The group, in unison ): “Yes!”.

And with that, the response to The Oath, the 2011-2012 IIDA Executive Board came to an end, and the 2012-2013 version began its life. Chris Coldoff, outgoing President, administered The Oath in the final 4 seconds of his term, moving the President-Elect (that would be me), and the President-Elect-Elect, David Fridlund, up our respective rungs, and avowing a full, new Board, comprised of a healthy mix of both veterans and initiates.

Chris moves to Past President, having navigated the year with a steady hand through some tricky issues, most notably, California Assembly Bill 2482. This bill was to create a “Registered Interior Design Board” within the Department of Consumer Affairs charged with licensing Registered Interior Designers (RID), but was pulled prior to reaching the floor of the Assembly. That fact not withstanding,  the issue is not dead. It still is incumbent on our Chapter to work with IDCC, CCIDCASID and others to see that the existing Certification bill does not “sunset”, as it is due to at the end of this year. The expiration of that bill, should it happen, would send a negative message to professional interior designers in California as well as the rest of the country, where 41 states have pending legislation, that licensure is not important or necessary. We will work together this year to make sure that doesn’t happen.

We will also focus on boosting membership by encouraging recognition and respect for our Association within the firms we work for, the clients who engage us, and the sponsors who support us. If heads of the companies we work for do not know or care about IIDA, there will be be little incentive for designers to take their NCIDQ exam to obtain professional status within our organization. Without recognition in our own companies, why would our clients demand our mark of professionalism for their projects, the IIDA appellation we have worked so hard to earn? It’s up to us, the entire membership of IIDA SoCal, all 800+ of us, to make sure we reach out, advocate, and educate to assure our continued existence and relevance.

There will  be other issues that arise in the course of the upcoming year, but these were two that pressed most firmly on my mind in my President’s Message to the Board, which also included the related concept of “distributed problem-solving”, the engagement of the full board for resolution of these vital and existential issues affecting all of us, collectively and individually. As a group, we will together chart our future and our prospects.

“Yes”, we said to The Oath, and, yes, it will be a very interesting year that unfolds before us.

Scott Johnson, IIDA 
IIDA SoCal Chapter President
Wolcott Architecture
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