2006 RECAP

EPSOLA was created to give us, Intern Architects, opportunities to acquire community service credit for IDP; provide a venue for interns to discuss issues of internship, ARE, IDP, and other issues concerning internship; and to provide a much needed connection between graduation and license.

This past year has been challenging. Setbacks and pitfalls produced work of minimal impact only to give way to triumphs with substance. We spent time with the Boy’s and Girl’s Club in hopes to provide them a way to make the spaces better. It morphed into a collaborative effort with the AIA150:building hope initiative with exterior and interior improvements at the Granberry unit with the expectation that this will continue through all locations in Acadiana.

The H.C. Ramps for the Aged is a continuing process. We have designed and built three ramps. Lynda Southard of the Cajun Area Council for the Aged is looking forward to next year to continue this project and continue this altruistic venture. Recent developments lead me to believe that this project will expand dramatically next year. AmeriCorps provides HC Ramps across the country to those in need. AIAS President Hans Breaux is working on getting their cooperation in our local venture.

Meetings between AIAS board members and myself have proved successful. A mentorship program between EPSOLA members and students will be in place for next semester. We will also be providing guest crits to Third, Fourth and Graduate Studio classes. The exact schedule will be provided in the January 07 In ha-bit. This is an excellent opportunity to give back to the University, assist the students with trying situations, and recruit new members by association.

The Ledoux Memorial Seating Area at Kaplan High School is an ongoing project. We have begun the material collection process. Once the materials are sufficient to provide a viable project, we will begin the design process.

With the creation of this blog, EPSOLA will have a real-time record of our experiences. The EPSOLA membership, the students and any intern around the state that has a question, concern, etc will be able to utilize this blog for answers.

In 2007, I will be serving as the Associate Director for the state of Louisiana. My service to EPSOLA will not change; I only take on the responsibility of getting information to the interns outside of our area. I have created several booklets to assist AIA chapters around the state to create Associate groups similar to ours. I will also use this blog to post information important to interns around the state.
I will continue the study seminars started by 2006 AD Angela Morton, Associate AIA-New Orleans. I am also working to have a rotating schedule with the surrounding states for ARE study seminars. This will give interns around our state and surrounding states ample opportunities to attend these seminars.

Thank you, all of you, for a wonderful year. Merry Christmas!! Happy New Year!!

Lets look forward to a productive and vibrant 2007.

Sincerely,

Brent Frick, Assoc. AIA
EPSOLA President
Associate Director, AIA-LA

Associate Director Meeting

Below is a quick summary of the final dates for the Associate Directors First Annual(bi-annual, Tri-,Quad-...whatever)Committee meeting.

1-

"Partners in Crime,
All are available is January 27-28, so that is when we will meet. Let's tentatively set the time as 10:30am Saturday through lunch Sunday. Some of you may need more am drive time Sat am, so we'll keep it loose. I have reserved a space for us at the MSU School of Architecture.
Brent, will you post dates and other information on your wonderful site.
I am working on a party for Saturday night at a really cool architect designed home. Details will follow.
I'll forward information about lodging separately. Angela, Candi, and Sommerville, you are welcome to stay with me. Sorry, fellas, I don't think I can swing having you. If you come sans families, I may be able to find you a host, however.
I'm so glad our summit is going to happen. I look forward to seeing all of you!
Annette
Annette Fortman Vise
CANIZARO CAWTHON DAVIS
Architecture . Planning . Interior Design
129 South President Street Jackson, Mississippi 39201
w. 601.948.7337
f. 601.948.7336
e. annette@ccdarchitects.com"


2-

"Hey guys,
I didn't want to get it too big. This would be a planning session for us, me plus the 5 state board associate directors to take back to everyone. I have a lot on the draft agenda I have started. If we want to add more then I would invite the intern/associate directors from each chapter/component and if they didn't have one then we can work on getting one for each chapter/component in our respective states. Lets see how big of an agenda we get before we send an invite to everyone. Also we all need to go back to our State board and see if they will defray any cost for attending this meeting. You would be surprised what you will get if you just ask.
Here is who I think should attend:
First and foremost these directors.
Gulf State's Associate Director: Danny Trotter
Alabama State Director: Sommerville Hill
Arkansas State Director: Jon Boelkins
Louisiana State Director: Brent Frick
Mississippi State Director: Annette Forman Vise
Tennessee State Director: Aaron Miller
Then past State Associate Directors(if they are still interested and are still associates): Angela, Candi
Then each chapter's associate director if they have one in each chapter - there are 23 total chapters in the Gulf States that show up on the AIA website: AR-1,AL-6, LA-9, MS-1, TN-6
Please check out this DRAFT agenda and we can add or take off anything. I will have the main copy so if you have any suggestions please send them to me and I'll send out a draft each week for us to review.
thanks
Danny Q. Trotter, Assoc. AIA
AIA -Gulf States Regional Associate Director
Alabama - Arkansas - Louisiana - Mississippi - Tennessee"

Invitation

Everyone,

Below is the EXTRA sent recently.

ARE Study Sessions Collaboration

Over the past several days, I have been in disscussions with the Associate Directors of the surrounding states to work on rolling ARE study sessions for each of the states. What will happen is still somewhat in the air right now, however we(myself and the other AD's) will be meeting in early January to iron out the details. I hope to get this worked out for every intern and Associate in the state as well as the members of EPSOLA.

Below are the relevant emails sent between myself and the other AD's about this subject. As more come available, I will post it.

1-

"Danny,
Have you heard any more information from the other
associate directors for the surrounding states. I
remember you wrote that you did not receive any
infromation from Arkansas . I have gotten several
emails from interns in the northern part of LA who
would like to attend some study sessions a little
closer to home.
Also, do you have any contact information for the
Associate Director for the Dallas-Fortworth area. The
interns in the Shreveport are fairly close to that
area and if they can attend, I would like to provide
them the opportunity.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Brent Frick, Associate AIA
Louisiana Associate Director
EPSOLA President
Don J. O'Rourke and Associates
A Professional Corporation
103 Exchange Place, Ste. 202
Lafayette , LA 70503
office.337.232.2838
fax.337.237.6085
email.bafrick01@yahoo.com"


2-

"Hi Brent,
I'm Candi Adams, 2006 AD, AIA Arkansas. To answer a couple of your event questions, we have held a couple of ARE seminars this year, including MEP in August in Fayetteville , and Thaddeus' Structures in Hot Springs . We had Dorf scheduled, but didn't get enough people registered, so we had to cancel. We are hoping to hold these all again next year, and hopefully add a couple to get all the tests covered...

Our AD next year is Jon Boelkins, with Cooper Architects in Fayetteville , and he will be taking over for me in January. I have copied him on this email. AIA Arkansas is working to create an Associates Committee that will be in charge of events, seminars, etc..., and we do have a member of the committee in El Dorado, AR (basically on the LA border...) We'd be glad to forward announcements to your chapter, and certainly any announcements you would like to share with us would be great. I am also attaching a couple of contacts I have made this year with AIA Dallas and AIA Houston. They were all very helpful in advising us for the ARE Seminars, especially Thaddeus and Dorf.

I hope we can keep this line of communication open, and if you have anymore questions or ideas, please let us know!!

Thank you,
Candi Lynn Adams, Assoc. AIA
Associate Director, 2006, AIA Arkansas
Wilcox Group Architects
Little Rock, Arkansas

Jennifer A. Peters
Good Fulton & Farrell Architects
Project Coordinator
2808 Fairmount, suite 300
Dallas, Texas 75201
214/303-1500 phone
214/303-1512 fax
www.gff.com

Jenny Lorenz
AIA Dallas
1444 Oak Lawn Avenue
Suite 600
Dallas, Texas 75207
214.742.3242
www.aiadallas.org

Ricardo A. George
EDI Architecture, Inc.
2800 Post Oak Boulevard, Suite. 3800
Houston, TX. 77056
Phone: 713.375.1400
Fax: 713.375.1600
Direct: 713.375.1423
Direct Fax: 713.375.1623
E-Mail: Ricardo.George@EDIarchitecture.com
Website: www.EDIarchitecture.com"


3-

"Candi and All,

I'm the AIA Mississippi Director for Associates and Interns, this year and next. AIA Mississippi is interested in doing joint venture seminars for our interns. Joint ventures make the seminars more affordable and help deliver enough participants since they draw from multiple chapters. Offering something in Memphis is a possibility. Tennessee chapters could obviously join in as well. I have attended the Thaddeus seminar, it is a proverbial favorite, and well worth offering often; it's fabulous. I'm told the Dorff seminar is equally worthwhile. I'm sure there are others, particularly where M&E is concerned.

Let's compile a master list of which seminars are being offered in our various chapters. I know AIA New Orleans is going to offer Dorff sometime this summer at Tulane. I'd like to know what else is available in the region in the coming year.

Annette Fortman Vise

CANIZARO CAWTHON DAVIS
Architecture . Planning . Interior Design
129 South President Street Jackson, Mississippi 39201
w. 601.948.7337
f. 601.948.7336
e. annette@ccdarchitects.com"


4-

"Jon, Annette, Danny, and All,

I am gearing up for the first executive meeting of
2007, just as each of you. As such, this master list
agenda for study seminars and collaboration between
the neighboring states would be an excellent addition
to our agenda when we present to our respective boards
next year.
If possible, I would like to host two seminars in
Louisiana: one in the spring and one in late July or
mid October. Additional seminars, should they come
about outside of my efforts (i.e. hosted by local
chapters) I will forward that information to each of
you as soon as I receive the invite. Hopefully this
information will come to me well in advance of the
seminar to offer you and your associates the
opportunity to attend.
I will try to conduct a Dorff seminar in March of 2007
in the Lafayette area if he is available. I will
inquire about getting this underwritten by area
chapters in Louisiana for the attendees to keep the
cost as low as possible. I do understand anyone that
comes from other areas must find lodging. I will try
to arrange for pay lodging and "host" lodging in the
area.
These are some of my ideas. Please let me know what
you think and provide input.

Sincerely,

Brent Frick, Associate AIA
Don J. O'Rourke and Associates
A Professional Corporation
103 Exchange Place, Ste. 202 Lafayette, LA 70503

office.337.232.2838
fax.337.237.6085
email.bafrick01@yahoo.com"


5-

"To the Associate Gang:

One thing I'd like to throw into this whole fray is the idea of having a set
progression of ARE prep sessions. I'm sure that trying to implement that
across state lines will be even harder, but it seemed to be something
important to the people we talked to at the convention. I think that people
who are in the process of taking the exams already may not like it, but
ultimately it would help if everyone prepares in for sessions in the same
order.

By having a group of states share this system, we could, as Brent suggested,
have his state host 2 of the sessions, then have Arkansas and Mississippi
host some of the others.
Thanks for all the input, everyone.
Jonathan Boelkins, Assoc. AIA
Cooper Architects"


6-

"I think as long as we can cross market the seminars, each state would benefit as would a larger number of ARE candidates. We can spread out the Thaddeus and Dorf per state or at least offset the schedules so we offer both the spring and fall for each lecture.

candi"


7-

"Does anyone think that a regional get-together at the start of the year might be a good idea? It seems like planning this across several states through email might make it overly difficult. Maybe we could sit down and create a comprehensive schedule across our states that is cooperative. It might be nice to have everyone meet each other anyway.

Thoughts? Locations?

Jonathan Boelkins, Assoc. AIA Arkansas"



8-

"Hey guys,
I didn't want to get it too big. This would be a planning session for us, me plus the 5 state board associate directors to take back to everyone. I have a lot on the draft agenda I have started. If we want to add more then I would invite the intern/associate directors from each chapter/component and if they didn't have one then we can work on getting one for each chapter/component in our respective states. Lets see how big of an agenda we get before we send an invite to everyone. Also we all need to go back to our State board and see if they will defray any cost for attending this meeting. You would be surprised what you will get if you just ask.

Here is who I think should attend:
First and foremost these directors.
Gulf State's Associate Director: Danny Trotter
Alabama State Director: Sommerville Hill
Arkansas State Director: Jon Boelkins
Louisiana State Director: Brent Frick
Mississippi State Director: Annette Forman Vise
Tennessee State Director: Aaron Miller

Then past State Associate Directors(if they are still interested and are still associates): Angela, Candi

Then each chapter's associate director if they have one in each chapter - there are 23 total chapters in the Gulf States that show up on the AIA website: AR-1,AL-6, LA-9, MS-1, TN-6

Please check out this DRAFT agenda and we can add or take off anything. I will have the main copy so if you have any suggestions please send them to me and I'll send out a draft each week for us to review.
thanks

Danny Q. Trotter, Assoc. AIA
AIA -Gulf States Regional Associate Director
Alabama - Arkansas - Louisiana - Mississippi - Tennessee"


9-
"For planning purposes, assume all dates are from 10am-5pm. If we can work out a two day stretch, it would actually be more like Sat 11am-5pm + evening soiree + Sun 9am-12pm. Let me know by the end of today if possible.

Sat January 6
Sun January 7

Sat January 13
Sun January 14

Sat January 20
Sun January 21

Sat January 27
Sat January 28


Annette Fortman Vise
CANIZARO CAWTHON DAVIS
Architecture . Planning . Interior Design
129 South President Street
Jackson , Mississippi 39201
w. 601.948.7337
f. 601.948.7336
e. annette@ccdarchitects.com"