The 13^th Annual IFMA Boston Awards of Excellence: Building Innovation at the Institute of Contemporary Art in the city’s Innovation District will take place on May 11. The event will kick off with the awards presentation in the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theatre, followed by a cocktail dinner reception throughout the first floor of the museum. So please join us, as we highlight the contributions to the A/E/C community throughout the year and celebrate the best and brightest within the Facility Management profession.

It has been a great year so far and we are only 4 months in.

The CFM study hall series focusing on the 9 competencies of the CFM Certification Exam began Monday, January 25th and ended Monday, March 21st. Congratulations to all who completed the study.

President-Elect Dawn Borden was the moderator for a full house at our January program at athenahealth, Learning how the new facility in Watertown brings together the contemporary and the historic.

President elect Dawn Borden moderator at January program at athenahealth

January 24 was “Changing the Face of the Financial District with Jibo.” Jibo is the creator of the world’s first Social Robot for the Home, and a design-driven company. It’s first permanent headquarters is located at 230 Congress St. where they will design, engineer, test, and market their highly innovative Home Robot.

On March 30, NAIOP Massachusetts put on its annual Community Connect Day – Service with Boston’s CRE Industry. The event was held at Cradles to Crayons, a charity organization that provides essential items for home, school, and play free of charge for those that are homeless or are in low-income situations. The Community Connect Day was a collaboration of several industry organizations, including: NAIOP, AAREP NE, BSA, CoreNet Global NE, CREW Boston, SMPS, SWEP, and ULI. All coming together to volunteer for a cause outside of their industry.

“I encourage all of you to mark your calendars for spring-time next year to come out to this very well-run and charitable event. It is a win-win for us as facility professionals, allowing us to give back to our community while growing our network at the same time. Hope to see you there next year,” said Andrew Verderame, community projects committee, IFMA Boston.

Event at Lesley College, Something Old, Something New

On March 31 we toured Lesley College, Something Old, Something New, a 70,000 s/f facility. It took 10 years for Lesley College’s School of Art and Design to build a state of the art facility for their students. The panel discussion following the tour detailed the painstaking efforts the team went through to get as much space as possible for the students and preserve the historic church as well as engage the community in their ongoing projects”

On April 26, we attended Cimpress’ new location in Waltham. The guest speakers discussed how they created an amenity-rich space custom-tailored to Cimpress’ unique culture and mission.Panelists included: Tim Bailey, senior architect and associate partner of Margulies Perruzzi Architects,Mary Kay Smith, senior project manager at Cushman and Wakefield,Paul Pereira, facilities supervisor at Cimpress, Jason Smith, senior project manager at Commodore Builders, and moderated by Lori Coletti, founder of Big Bark Solutions.

Visit to Cimpress’ new location - Waltham, MA

April 28 was the 6^th Eco Carpentry Challenge put on by The Furniture Trust and sponsored/ mentored by the A/E/C Industry. The Eco-Carpentry Challenge promotes resourcefulness and recycling as well as provides an opportunity for students to develop their creative carpentry skills while demonstrating their commitment to recycling by creating new products from used office furniture. IFMA members Alex Dupnik from Dyer Brown as well as IFMA committee member & Mike Clancy from Creative Office Pavilion as well as vice president of the professional development committee, IFMABoston were two of the many mentors for competing student teams. Some more IFMA members and volunteers helped throughout the event that night.

Annie McEvoy is an associate publisher at the New England Real Estate Journal, Norwell, Mass.