FSU SHPE Relationship Management Officer

Upon completing my sophomore year as the treasurer of the chapter I decided to maintain my involvement in the club leadership by running for Relationship Management Officer. “Forget the spreadsheets and balance sheets, I want to deal with people!” I told myself as my year being the finance guy of the club drew to a close. I believed that this position would be more my speed since I consider myself to be a people person. Except for myself and my good friend Ricardo, who be our president, we started out the 2012-2013 academic year with an entirely new executive board. Though this seemed like a challenge from the outside, Ricky and I knew this would be an advantage. We had a fresh set of highly motivated individuals ready to tackle the new year and move the chapter in a new direction. This was our year, our time to evolve. The year where we set everything up for greatness to come.

Most of the previous chapter was composed of seniors; This created a big obstacle for the incoming e-board, most of our existing chapter was graduating. We took this as an opportunity to change much of the modus operandi of the organization.  With a brand-new executive board and a fresh member body, it was the perfect time to evolve to our next stage. The very first thing we did was host a series of meetings before the summer of 2012 and began to devise our attack strategy. The plan was to heavily recruit during the summer, especially at the incoming freshmen orientations. We did just that. Our first general body meeting at the beginning of the 2013 fall was full house. The year progressed and many new faces appeared in our member body, many of which stayed. Member retention was key that year.

As the relationship manager, my biggest responsibility was being the face of the chapter alongside the president. I spoke at all our recruiting event and used my soft skills to attract new talent. I managed the relationship between our chapter and other student organizations on campus, such as other multicultural organizations, the Hispanic Latino Student Union, and the Student Government. I build a network within the student organization that allowed the chapter to participate in countless events across campus and get the exposure needed for successful recruiting.

Besides managing the relations of the chapter, I was also in charge or promoting our workshops, meetings, and social events. We changed our marketing strategy completely; we started using a flyer designer instead of just PowerPoint, we flooded the campus with flyers and literature of the organizations, and most importantly, we got swagger made. This was the first year that the chapter gave out FSU SHPE gear. We made tank tops, hats, shot glasses, cups, shirts, sunglasses; essentially all the propaganda stuff college students love. This was a huge success and proved to be a mutually beneficial effort; people wore and promoted our brand, we raised funds through selling gear, people felt a deeper sense of inclusion within the chapter, and the members got a bunch of cool stuff. All in all, the chapter began to feel more like a professional development than anything else.

One of the five pillars of SHPE is chapter development. What did that mean? At the time, we were a solid chapter, but the chemistry was not the best. No because of any personal issues, but likely due to the fact that we were a club formed of new members. The deep-rooter friendships had not formed yet. We’ve had a successful year thus far, but I knew that in order to maintain the momentum long term would couldn’t just be colleagues. We had to become friends, best friends; a group of individuals that cared for each other as much as the common goal. I knew this was key to the chapter development, so I took a hands-on approach and devised a series of events to remediate the situation. How do you get a bunch of college kids to become friends?  You guessed it, booze and fun. After a little convincing, the rest of the leadership jumped on board. We began planning for events like grill outs, pool parties, nights out etc. Not only was this going to be a productive year, it was going to be a fun one.

This was a year full of first times for the chapter: first swagger merchandising campaign, first hosting of purely social events, first time hosting a regional conference. There couldn’t have been a more successful execution of our evolutionary plan if we tried. We set out the year with one goal, bring the new chapter closer than ever and create a new modus operandi; and that we did! Throughout the year I made incredible connections, many of which are some of my best friends still today. I grew and evolved along with the chapter. My passion for helping others and growing this organization blossomed to new heights; this is when I decided to run for chapter president in the upcoming executive board elections.