ALAMO CHAPTER (SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS)
The Alamo Chapter closed out an active year of significant membership growth at a chapter luncheon on 2 Oct. Our guest speaker, Major General John Barry, enlightened us on the technical and cultural issues that NASA's Accident Investigation Board uncovered as contributing to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on 1 Feb 03. The amazing digital recreations of the events leading to the Columbia's tragic re-entry reached all of our chapter members regardless of logistics discipline -- we, as Air Force officers, civilians and contractors, must address the difficult technical problems in our programs, while at the same time using our leadership strengths to create and operate an organization of experts with proper checks and balance to ensure safe operations. The Alamo Chapter also participated in a community service event on 6 December 2003. Several members from our chapter spent the day repairing facilities at the local Boysville. Boysville is a comprehensive residential care facility providing a "home with a heart" for children in South Texas. It was an excellent opportunity and we look forward to a continuing partnership between the Alamo Chapter and Boysville. The Alamo Chapter installed a new board for 2003-2004 and added three new positions; an East Vice-President, responsible for Randolph AFB logisticians, the West-Vice President responsible for Brooks and Lackland, and a Corporate Board member that has proven a valuable partner to the Alamo Chapter. We hold a telecon every other Tuesday to discuss chapter news. We also plan an executive board off-site monthly at a local restaurant. Our educational goals include hosting quarterly luncheons; the next is scheduled for January 2004. We invite all logisticians in the community, both members and nonmembers to attend the luncheons. We also set up a membership table at the luncheon to encourage those logisticians that are not members to join. The January Luncheon is set for 22 January 2004 at the Lackland Gateway Club, and the guest speaker is Retired Brigadier General Jernigan, recently appointed to head the Kelly Greater Development Corporations BRAC initiatives. This is a luncheon that logisticians will NOT want to miss, as he will be discussing the plans to secure the future of San Antonio Military Installations. We also have scheduled a professional development tour for Boeing Aerospace Company in February and are working to set up another Tour in the Ft Worth area to tour the Lockheed Martin plant later in the year. We have recently submitted an article for inclusion into the Winter edition of the ER, and plan to solicit members to submit other articles for future submissions. Our webmaster, is active in keeping the website up to date, and ensuring all members have access to the latest information, announcements and events that are planned. We also have photos posted on our website of the most recent events. We post on our site, "Weekly Whit" which consists of articles from prominent Aerospace Leaders. These articles are posted to educate the LOA members. Finally we have appointed an Awards and Scholarship committee chairperson to run the awards and scholarship program. We expect to submit nominations for each eligible award category in 2004 and we will select three local scholarship recipients, one of which will be nominated to the National board to compete for the national scholarship award. We have voted to donate to the National Board's Scholarship program and we believe this will inspire others to contribute to this valuable program. In order to raise funds for the Scholarship program, we have planned a Golf Tournament for May 2004, we have already secured several local corporate sponsors for this tournament, and expect a great turn out.