10.17.12

President's Talk at Leaders Breakfast

IIDA celebrates not just Leaders Breakfast (watch video from last month’s Leaders Breakfast event!) but Calibre, Speakers Series with CEU events, Leader Roundtables, NeoConnect trade shows, fabulous fashion shows demonstrating the great creative work of our members and their firms in LA, OC and SD, and Student Competitions to nurture the next generation of designers, and including reimbursement program for NCIDQ and LEED exams. We advocate to our state governments in California and nation-wide in 47 states to elevate the recognition of the profession.

Scott Johnson, IIDA SoCal President with Tom Wujec, Event Speaker

The IIDA appellation of professional, associate, affiliate, educator and student members is the mark of professionalism in the field. Professional members, of which there are some 200 in SoCal Chapter have shown through their education, experience and rigorous NCIDQ exam passage their qualification for the highest level of professionalism in interior design.

If you are a student finishing an accredited interior design degree program, you should continue, pass your exam and obtain the required experience to be an IIDA Professional.

Same is true for multi-year veterans: do your exam, get “IIDA” on your business card. If you are a firm principal, incentivize your design staff to achieve professional status by subsidizing some if not all exam fees and dues. You will benefit and enhance the professionalism of your company by doing so. And if you are a company principal, do what you need to do to become a professional member. It’s expected of you.

If you are a customer, whether client or construction manager for client, demand IIDA professional members be on the project team. Why would you do anything less?

Randy Stauffer, 2012 Leaders Breakfast Honoree

And accept no substitute. There are other design appellations, especially in California, but none that has the same requirements for education, exam, and experience as IIDA whose members create a myriad of spaces, including airports, hotels, hospitals, schools, and corporate offices just to name a few. We are not synonymous with decorators. Our expertise is different than that of architects.

We pursue creativity and innovation at the intersection of business, technology and art. We are whimsical and grounded, creative and practical, systematic and random, metaphorical and literal. We are design, we reach for the visceral heart of our projects, and IIDA, the voice of interior design, is the collective body and soul of our profession.