President’s Message – July 2020

By Renee Hoekstra, CVS – President, SAVE International

Hello everyone, it was so nice to see so many of you last month at our first virtual Value Summit. What an amazing event with record attendance. I know that Mike Pearsall and Tammy Dow have provided you with an update in their article, so I won’t spend a whole lot of time here. However, I do want to say thank you to everyone for your support and the many fabulous comments that have been shared about our event. We couldn’t have done it without the presenters, the Board, the Planning Committee and of course all of you!! I also want to thank everyone for attending our first ever virtual President’s Reception – it was nice to see everyone; I only wish I could have seen you all in person.

One other thing that I would like to touch on briefly is our first virtual VMF 1 course which was held as a post-Summit event. I am glad to announce that it was a great success. We had a class auditor who provided an outside look at how the course was delivered in a virtual platform. There were very positive reviews and this has led to the approval to deliver the VMF 1 virtually from July 1 through August 31, 2020 for those of you who are licensed instructors. Please make sure you follow the protocols in holding a virtual course or your attendees will not be eligible to take the VMA exam. Also, make sure you understand about the VMA exam testing procedures, which you can find online at www.value-eng.org/VMAexam.

Let’s all realize the criticalness of this opportunity. We must ensure that we continue to deliver a certification course that lives up to SAVE International’s quality standards. Go the extra mile to make sure that an attendee’s first introduction to the Value Methodology (VM) is a positive one, and one that excites and motivates them about the value proposition. These are exciting times, so let’s continue to have SAVE and our members lead the way in the delivery of training, workshops and more importantly, results.

Speaking of results, I am also excited to see so many of our members, clients and practitioners stepping up and delivering value workshops so effectively. I was pleased to be able to congratulate the USACE on their entire virtual program during the virtual Value Summit. Many clients can learn from their adaptability and leadership. Our clients and practitioners have shown their ability to step up and adapt quickly into the virtual world. This has been amazing to watch, and I’ve heard great things.

Just like the value training, we want to make sure that although we are succeeding, we continue to learn, grow and further adapt to the needs of each and every workshop, to deliver the best outcomes and to meet and even exceed expectations. I’m sure many of you have heard some of the same comments about your workshops, “I was very skeptical about how well this would work, but I’m pleasantly surprised. A few little technology glitches, but the workshop was a great success.

Please be diligent, pay close attention to the protocols that SAVE has set forth to continue to show that we can deliver! Again, continue to be leaders, facilitators and overall spreaders of the word; yes, you guessed it, and the word is VM. (I had to get that into the discussion somewhere.) Thanks for continuing to talk about VM and helping me achieve my goal of Spreading the Word.

So, what’s next? Well, we have a couple of new SAVE Board members that I’m really excited about welcoming into the fold. We have much on our plate, especially with education, conferences and certification. It is time for your Board to take another hard look at our strategic plan and we need to make some adjustments. As with any strategic plan, it is a living, breathing document that helps to guide us, but must be updated as the world around us changes, and so must our focus. We are going to have a short five-hour Board meeting in July just to introduce the new Board members and to get everyone to understand what our direction needs to be. It won’t be a whole lot of time, but it is a start and then we will have a much more in-depth meeting in October. Right now, the Board, like all of you, are trying to manage all of our efforts virtually. I’m hoping that I will have more updates for you as we move forward.

If you are leading or working on a Tiger Team, thank you for volunteering. We need all the help you can give us. We’re a small organization and we appreciate you. I’d like to get these wrapped up, so please help us to close these out by being prepared to finalize everything you have been doing and to submit your report by September 15 to the SAVE business office. Then Board members can review these plans and recommendations prior to our October meeting. We may then ask for a presentation by the Tiger Team Lead during that Board meeting. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

This is a short article this month, hopefully next month I’ll have more to share with all of you. This first year has flown by and I feel that I have so much more that I want to do. One of the most important things is to promote our 2021 Value Summit in Arizona. I’m hoping that much of the COVID issues will be behind us and we can once again enjoy each other’s company. It is important that we all support this Summit to aid SAVE in having the funds to continue to work to Promote, Advocate, Certify and Educate in an effort to Spread the Word, and the word is VM.