Who thought that letting the new guy handle the chapter finances was a good idea!? This is what I thought to myself when I was announced the new chapter treasurer for the 2011-2012 executive board. As a freshman nearing the end of my very first year in school, I was shocked to see that I had successfully marketed myself over some juniors and seniors and get elected into executive board of such a prominent organization. Who would’ve thought that my good looks and witty humor would get me elected into the leadership of the club with virtually no experience. I knew that, being the underdog and youngest member of the executive board, I had to take this lucky opportunity to step up my game and get ready to perform at all costs. This was the beginning of a long and fruitful career within the SHPE organization.

Being the treasurer, my responsibilities included creating expending budgets for the year and manage all expenses of the chapter. Not being a very organized person, like most other college freshmen, this was about to be a huge learning experience for me. From day one I was managing membership fees and disbursing corporate sponsorship money. I was in charge or handling the balance sheet to ensure that we could afford and execute all of our events and chapter affairs. This was the first time in my life I was in charge of other people’s money and had to manage the expenses of a collective. Who would’ve thought that years later I would end up in banking.

From the get go, we knew that this would be a challenging endeavor. The previous executive board left us with a drained bank account; we found ourselves starting from zero. First thing we did was to revamp our corporate sponsorship proposal package.

This was a document that we submitted to our partners in the engineering industry to enter into a sponsorship deal with the chapter; they would provide us with some money and we would connect them with talented engineers. This effort, along with campus fundraising and membership fees, allowed us to host successfully run the chapter and have a year full of seminars and events for our members.

Out of all the events of the year, SHPE’s biggest event of the year is our National Conference. At this conference, over 300 companies and more than 3000 undergraduate and graduate STEM students come together to hold what is one of the biggest career fairs in collegiate engineering.Besides overseeing the day to day expenses, one of the biggest responsibilities of the treasurer is to create a formal proposal for the Student Government Counsel to ask for money. This is done so the chapter can aid students in purchasing plane tickets or other forms of travel so they can also partake in the ocean of opportunities that is SHPE Conference. This entails a written proposal, the generation of a pitch, and a presentation to the Student Government RTAC committee. As a young treasurer, I was able to get close to four grand in funding to help our members, which is close to the most the chapter that has ever received from the school. 

Aside from a couple of hiccups, the year ran smoothly and we closed the year with one of the most stable savings accounts that the FSU chapter had seen to date. We were able to bring close to 30 members to Anaheim, CA for the National Conference and host countless seminars and social events throughout the year. As the year drew to a close, I found myself infatuated with the idea of continuing my involvement in the chapter leadership and decided to run for the position of Public Relations Officer for the 2012-2013 academic year.