As the new CASI Board President I would like to express my deep appreciation to our Board Members for their willingness to share their time and expertise. Our Board is comprised of individuals who work in private practice and others who work for public entities – this diversity helps to provide direction when planning events and when selecting topics of interest for our members.

I would like to recognize our outgoing president Kaylan Dunlap for her dedication and commitment to CASI. She was clear in her mission and helped to steer CASI in her two years as Board President. Not an easy feat when one lives out of state. A round of applause for Ernest Wuethrich, past Board President for his willingness to continue to serve on our board. He provides great information and insight. I am also excited to have Janis Kent back on the CASI Board because as a founding member of CASI she brings a wealth of knowledge, accessibility expertise and her New York sense of humor to our board meetings.

In the blink of an eye, we are now in the middle of February and lots of planning has been happening. The CASI Board is working on the format of our upcoming October Summit - we hope to present relevant topics by nationally recognized speakers, to opine on all matters accessible. We are also selecting the topics for our upcoming webinars based on suggestions made by our members and our board. If any of you have suggestions or ideas that you believe would be helpful to us, please contact us. We are happy to have your input and your participation.

Lastly, I would also like to thank our members for your participation and your willingness to share your views and opinions. Our Listserv is a very active forum, and it provides an opportunity for all our members to ask questions, share experiences and have others provide commentary. Please be sure to sign up if you have not already done so.

As Benjamin Franklin wrote, “In this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.”  I would like to add a third certainty – “when it comes to accessibility there will always be a differing opinion” no matter how straightforward one believes a code section might be. It is with this premise that CASI hopes to provide education, to create opportunities for informative discussions and to encourage each of us to reread code sections, to discern between opinions and to be confident when applying the applicable code sections to our projects.