A Letter from the Executive Director
As we bring our 25th Anniversary year to a close, I think about all that’s happened in the last twelve months. The year kicked off last July with our rebrand to EFBC as we became a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. We upgraded our CRM and e-marketing software, which was a necessity, but anyone who has done an IT upgrade knows it comes with many challenges. We brought Rick Rasmussen onto our team in a newly created outreach and engagement position. And then, of course, our Executive Director Judy Hogel retired after 10 years of incredible service and I humbly stepped into my new role as ED. These were major accomplishments that we hoped to achieve when we were building our strategic plan back in October of 2018. I’m incredibly proud of how far we have come!
As Mark Wesa mentioned in his President’s message earlier this month, we also revamped our Board of Directors. I have to give a huge thank you to Mark, who is moving into the Past President role in July, and Sean Hoffman, who served the year before him. When EFBC needed them, they both stepped up to serve longer terms on the Board of Directors to help us through this transition year.
I’ve heard people say, “Let’s just start 2021 and be done with this year already!” Personally, I’m not ready for 2020 to end. It’s been a year of growing pains and challenges, but I wouldn’t trade all my lessons learned for anything.
After the peak of the pandemic, the social injustice, and the disparity in our nation, I’ve gained an understanding of how diversity makes us stronger as humans in being empathetic and compassionate. We’ve banded together through the last twelve months, just as we have through all of the challenging times that came before. In all of this, I’ve realized how important it is to stay connected with family, friends, my Forum and my EFBC community, whether virtually or in-person.
None of us has that elusive magic eight ball to tell us what the coming months hold for our businesses, our families or ourselves. But I certainly don’t need any help in predicting that by leaning into our empathy, our compassion, and all the EQ skills we have all learned from the EFBC, we will get through whatever the rest of 2020 has in store. Please remember: don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any member of the staff at any time. All of us at the EFBC are here for you and for each other.
Warm Regards,
Liz Fidanovski
Executive Director
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