By Julius Suchy
Big Thank You to Rebecca Fleury and the City of Battle Creek
The Professional Development Committee (PDC) would like to extend a big thank you to Rebecca Fleury for her tenure as chair of the PDC. Rebecca has moved on, but her contributions and work have helped improve the committee. Most importantly, last year when the committee was struggling to find a Winter Institute location due to issues with the West Michigan options and the committee running out of time, Rebecca volunteered Battle Creek – admitting at the time that the city would be in a much better position in a few years following completion of the development projects that were just beginning. So a big thank you also goes out to the Battle Creek community for stepping up when needed. I look forward to coming back to Battle Creek in the future to see all the amazing progress.
Conference Planning
The committee is busy reviewing the feedback from the Winter Institute in Battle Creek as we plan for the Summer Workshop in Alpena in July. It is my goal as chair of the committee to take a close look at how the conferences are structured and try and find innovative ways to bring material to the membership and increase engagement. I look forward to working with the committee to implement some of these changes for the upcoming conferences.
Scholarship News
David Haag, city administrator of the City of Auburn, applied for and received a scholarship to the Saginaw Valley State University Certified Public Manager program. Patricia Rayl, village manager of Colon, applied for and received a scholarship to the 2020 MME Winter Institute.
If you are interested in applying for a scholarship or learning more about the program, please check out MME’s Scholarship page for more information. The next scholarship deadline is June 1, 2019.
Upcoming Conference Locations:
2019 Summer Workshop – Alpena, MI
2020 Winter Institute – Treetops Resort, Gaylord MI
2020 Summer Workshop – Frankenmuth, MI
2021 Winter Institute – TBD
The committee will be sending out a request for 2021 Summer Workshop locations. If you are in a community that would like to host, or if you have an idea for a community, please let me know and we can look into it as an option.
Julius Suchy
Chair, Professional Development Committee; Village Manager, Sparta
Julius Suchy was appointed as Sparta village manager in 2014. His other municipal experience includes serving as Dundee village manager, Vassar city manager, and Big Rapids zoning administrator.