Welcome to PMI Pittsburgh! 

Welcome to Pittsburgh PMI

Hello Everyone,

I cannot believe we will soon be taking our summer break for 2018. These 6 months have gone by very quickly for me. We have made some changes to our chapter over the last 6 months and we will be making more in the next 6 months; all things we hope help to improve your experience as a PMI Pittsburgh Chapter member.

This month I presented at the PMI Region 4 leadership meeting on the topic of hosting our chapter meeting via WebEx. This is something that hasn’t been done before in any chapter. PMI Pittsburgh was first! Many of the chapters in our region want to partner with us to offer more programing via WebEx.
Of course, all of this comes at a cost. As discussed before we will begin charging $10.00 for our chapter meetings in the fall. This is substantially lower than other chapters in our region, with an average charge of $45.00 per meeting! I know change can be hard and this was not an easy decision, but I do believe it is necessary.

Now I want to introduce you to Dan Polaski, VP of Governance and Policy.

VP Spotlight
Hello! My name is Dan Polaski and I have over 25 years of Project and Program Management experience. My experience spans many vertical markets and many disciplines in both the Public and Private sectors. I have been a Project and Program Manager/Director for many companies in the United States and overseas. I am a Management Consultant and the Program Director at IDI Consulting, LLC; of which I am a Co-Founder. I am a certified PMP, and am a graduate of Robert Morris University, I am currently the VP of Governance and Policy on the Board of Directors in the Pittsburgh Chapter. I have 4 children and 7 grandchildren. I currently live in Jefferson Hills with my wife of 43 years.

We have been working on a new set of Bylaws for several months. Normally, we would highlight the changes from the previous Bylaws. Unfortunately, the previous Bylaws are too old to just highlight changes. In this case, the Bylaws should be reviewed in their entirety.
The process for member ratification is as follows:
The proposed Bylaws will be posted to the Pittsburgh Chapter website and members will be notified to review the newly proposed bylaws from the website on Monday, 11-Jun. The Bylaws will be available on the website for review and comment for 45 days.

The September Chapter meeting will be our annual “State of the Chapter” meeting. A vote will be taken at that meeting by all members present to ratify the Bylaws. If approved, the Bylaws will take effect immediately.

Kimberly Reed
President, Pittsburgh PMI
Kimberly.Reed@bnymellon.com

VP Spotlight

Hi everyone this is Paul Halenda, VP of Outreach. A little about me, I have over 10 years’ experience as a Project Manager in the Healthcare industry. I have been volunteering in the outreach space for several years. I enjoy spending my free time with my four children, running, rowing, and volunteering on session at my church.

The purpose of our Outreach Program is to promote the PMI Pittsburgh chapter to local businesses, academic organizations, professional associations, and the local Pittsburgh community. Through these public relations we aim to promote awareness of the purpose, activities and benefits of the chapter to our members, companies, colleges, organizations and associations. Through feedback and communication we analyse our member needs and requirements to improve effectiveness of our offerings in pursuit of an overall goal of growth and improvement in the field of project management, and ultimately establishing the Pittsburgh area as a Project Management Center of Excellence.

Our Outreach team has several Social Networking events in the works, our first one for 2018 was held on February 22nd, at Caliente Pizza and Draft House in Bloomfield. Our topic was PIZZA TALK (Guests put their name and a topic into a hat to discuss a PM topic). We had 36 people in attendance and a great discussion. There will more Social Networking throughout the year so watch the calendar. And lastly for March, we are once again hosting our Hands on Workshops (HOW). Our first HOW will be on May 17th at Lot 17 in Bloomfield. The topic for this event will be “Systems Design for Agile Projects to Improve Flow and Velocity” and our speaker for the event is Fred Koos (Past President). We will have registration setup for this event shortly. In addition, these events will be held once a quarter, if you are looking for PDU’s, come and attend.

My Team can always use volunteers that have time available to help us continue to support our membership. Please reach out to me, paul.halenda@pittsburghpmi.org and I would be happy to get you involved. I appreciate every volunteer, and please accept my “Thank You” to all our current and future volunteers. Your time and dedication is greatly appreciated. We will have more to follow for 2018.