Dear Members of the North Carolina Bar Association’s Government and Public Sector Section (GPS):

Welcome to the Association’s 2019-2020 year! My name is Mike. I’m honored to serve as this year’s chair of the GPS Section alongside a formidable and distinguished set of officers and a Section Council, the members of which are LINKED HERE. I look forward to working alongside our officers, Council members, and committee chairs to deliver to you the value each of you deserve as members of the GPS Section.

As we start the year, I invite you to mark your calendars with and to consider the following opportunities:

If you haven’t yet done so, please renew your Bar Association membership. As you may know, the Bar Association revised its due structure for this year. Two of the benefits of that revision are (1) you are entitled to one free Section membership (Can you hear me Irish whispering “GPS”?), and (2) you are entitled to monthly on-demand CLEs from the Expert Series. Renew your membership now so that you can consume the September CLE before it expires. You can email [email protected] or call (919) 677-0561 to discuss your renewal.

On Friday, November 8, 2019, the GPS Section along with the Administrative Law Section, the Environment, Energy & Natural Resources Section, and the Juvenile Justice & Children’s Rights Section, will host “Riding the Waves of Change: 2019 Legislative Review” from the Bar Center in Cary (or from your tablet or computer, should you wish). Program information is available here.

Our 2020 Annual Meeting and CLE will be held on Friday, April 24, 2020, and will be held jointly with the Administrative Law Section. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if there are specific topics about which, or speakers from which, you’d like to hear (or would like to present, yourself), whether in the formal CLE or during the course of the year such as through substantive GPS Section blog posts, lunches-and-learns, or otherwise. It is our aim this year to make sure the amount, and relevancy to you, of our available content is a driver of the value of your GPS Section membership.

If you are interested in involving yourself this year with GPS Section leadership, our committee structure is an excellent way to turn your thoughts into action. Our committees are: CLE Committee (Co-Chairs Paige Worsham/Ann Wall), Communications Committee (Amy O’Neal/Matt Sommer), Pro Bono Committee (Tom Harris/Ben Mount), Legislative Committee (Jeff Gray/Skye David), Membership/Long-Range Planning Committee (Nicolette Fulton/Lucy Austin). Please let me know if you are interested in serving our Section on one of these committees, in whatever capacity meets both your bandwidth and the committee need.

Finally, as always, please let me know how our Section can best serve you this year.

Thank you for being a part of our Section.

Mike Thelen
NCBA Government and Public Sector Section
2019-2020 Chair
[email protected]
(919) 755-2154
https://www.womblebonddickinson.com/us/people/michael-c-thelen

September 18, 2019/by GovernmentandPublicSector