Professional Development Meeting

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Our President

Rebecca Young 

CPIM

Greetings, the San Joaquin Valley Chapter is having a great year for our Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM) Review courses thanks to Connie Tallman, our former VP of Education.  Unfortunately for us Connie recently moved to Everett, Washington for a fantastic job opportunity and we will miss her greatly.  But we wish Connie great success in her new ventures. 

John Newlyn, CSCP, CFPIM, CIRM, has stepped in to finish the 2011 Education Calendar and will be the instructor for the ‘Strategic Management of Resources’ review course coming up in October.  The Fresno Chapter really appreciates John’s help as Education is at the heart of APICS.  Contact John at jnewlyn@gmail.com if you would like more information about the CPIM Review courses. 

For the 2011/2012 APICS Chapter Board, we have Rebecca Young (myself) continuing on as chapter President; Randy DiPinto continues as the e-Newsletter Administrator; Dan Dieterich as our Website Administrator; Marco Fabila as Facilities Coordinator; and Paula Cooke continuing as Director of Finance.  Thank you to our past and present Board of Directors for your support and hard work.  Your commitment to our San Joaquin Valley chapter of APICS is greatly appreciated! 

We still are not able to hold Professional Development (PDM) dinner meetings due to a lack of Board resources.  We still have the VP of Programs, VP of Education, and VP of Company Coordinators Board positions open.  If you are interested in joining our dynamic leadership team, please contact any current Board member for more information.  Joining your APICS board is a great opportunity to learn organizational and leadership skills and also work with some really great people within our professional community. 

We look forward to continuing to present APICS educational classes and hopefully expand our program offerings.  See you in certification class!

Rebecca Young, CPIM

President, San Joaquin Valley Chapter of APICS

Our Beginnings

The First Thirty Years

In the early months of 1975, a small band of local P&IC practitioners sought to bring professional enlightenment into our Valley by gaining entrance into the fastest growing technical society in the world.

By Randy DiPinto CPIM

Read "In The Beginning"

District and Chapter Handbook

Curious as to how the APICS Chapters and Districts operate?

District and Chapter Handbook

The APICS San Joaquin Valley Chapter serves Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced and Tulare counties.  This includes Fresno, Clovis, Madera, Merced, Hanford, Visalia and other neighboring communities.

Upcoming Classes

CPIM Review: Basics of Supply Chain Management

Sat, Jan. 14th, 8am - 4pm

Sat, Jan. 28th, 8am - 4pm

Sat, Feb. 11th, 8am - 4pm

Registration Deadline: Jan 6, 2012

More about the class

Pay on-line for Class

2011 Education Calendar

For information contact: 

Rebecca Young at 559.292.1981 or rlyoung@pelco.com

A Confession

How (not) to Elect an APICS Chapter President!

APICS is, and always will be, a professional society made up of volunteers wanting to make a difference.  But as volunteers, we don't always have the time and resources needed to manage the chapter in a "proper" manner, yet as professionals we sometimes have to make decisions without the luxury of time.  Here was one of those times ....

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago …  Wait a minute - this is not a fairy tale.  This actually happened.  And since the statute of limitations has finally run its course, it's now safe to share one of our "skeletons in the closet" stories on how one of our members came to serve our chapter as president.

Back in the early 80's when our chapter was much younger and not as "sophisticated", elections were held to elect a new president and Board of Directors for the 1982 term.  The first dinner meeting of the new term had arrived and the newly elected President and Board were to be formally introduced to the chapter members with the oath of office officiated by a member of our Region 10 staff.  That evening, 3 of us arrived early at Fresno's "Tower House" restaurant to set up for the coming event when a call came in on the restaurant's phone (this was long before cell phones) for "any" APICS member.  Without presiding over a single APICS event, the newly elected president phoned in her resignation and was not heard from again.

What were going to do?!  Attendees were beginning to arrive for the dinner meeting and now we didn't have a president!  How was this presidential 'no-show' going to look?  What vote of confidence could we expect without a chapter leader?  So while we sat around a small table in the restaurant's bar trying to figure out how to clean up this mess, we noticed one of our new chapter members sitting at the bar having a drink before the meeting began.  This member had recently joined our APICS chapter and this was his very first dinner meeting.  But regardless of his lack of APICS experience, we saw an opportunity and said "hey, how about him?"

Desperate times begat desperate measures so we threw the chapter bylaws right out the window.  The chapter president is supposed to be elected by a vote of the chapter members - not appointed, and even if we could appoint a president, we needed a quorum vote of the Board which we did not have at the moment, so without telling the Region 10 officer (who was due to arrive any minute) what had just happened, in desperation we conspired to solve the matter ourselves.

It's a good thing this member had already consumed a couple of drinks, because when we approached him and said "Hi, how would you like to be chapter president?", his resistance was at low ebb and common sense did not prevail and he said  "sure, why not".  So for the few minutes remaining before the start of the meeting, we sat around that little table explaining "everything" he needed to know about being an APICS chapter president.  We described the evening's events on he and his new Board would be sworn in as chapter officers, and as an added bonus for being the new chapter president, he had to take center stage as the "MC" for the dinner meeting.

Incredulously the evening went off without a hitch with the "backstage antics" pretty much transparent to most in attendance.  When the rest of the Board members arrived we had to pull them aside and tell them what we did.  But since the only alternative was for one of them to volunteer for the president's position, everyone agreed with the course of action.  The 1982 / 1983 was not the chapter's most stellar year, but we survived and the president completed his term in office.  We all learned a valuable lesson that night - when the going gets tough and your back is against the wall, vote for the new guy cuz' he's probably too "looped" to turn around and run!