Yes, many of you completed Scarlett O'Hara's famous quote with Rhett Butler's famous retort. I get that. After all of my presidential messages in this journal, you are all ready to move on. However, I am planning to stick around. The progress of the last four years has excited me, so I am ready to do more things to help our Association grow. There are committees that need more volunteer help. I will still be around.

Over the past year and a half as NAEP president, I have been privileged to witness some great accomplishments in NAEP. I am extremely thankful to the preceding presidents, who made the Association a working machine of innovation, imagination, and growing influence. The board members have facilitated the cooperation to make things happen. I am fully aware now that the progress of the Association depends entirely on the volunteers and their vision. Whereas a president has the title, the board of directors determines whether things get done.

The theme of the 2012 NAEP Annual Conference—Science, Politics, and Policy: Environmental Nexus—was developed as a local initiative. Like all previous themes, there are also national and international aspects. This is a great theme for the National Association of Environmental Professionals. We pride ourselves, after all, with being a multidisciplinary association impacting all aspects of the professions. A review of membership reveals scientists, as well as lawyers and engineers. We are educators and we are policy makers. I can think of no other professional association that covers as many aspects of the environmental professions. No other single-issue association can provide the audience of NAEP with the information we need to do our job. Even the associated Certification as an Environmental Professional embodies the multidimensional aspects of the profession.

Recently I was faced with an issue that has been a subject of discussion since I joined. Each time, it is answered for a new cohort of members, but we somehow do not seem to maintain that corporate knowledge or convey it effectively.

I don't know about you, but to me the world in which we live appears to be faster and more full of information than in years past. The pace of information being provided to us is increased by modern conveniences like television and the Internet. While it is amazing the speed with which we can receive information, I am concerned that the information is not getting processed properly. In some cases, I am convinced that the information provided is faulty.

Since receiving the honor of serving as President of the National Association of Environmental Professionals (NAEP), I have taken a good look at what NAEP is doing for our members, what we are proposing for the future, and what is still necessary. In many ways, this analysis is an outgrowth of the NAEP Board of Directors continuing efforts to improve and redefine what NAEP is and what it means to environmental professionals. Having been a part of these tremendous advances, in my new role I am evaluating our efforts from a different perspective to help steer the future of the association.

Seventh Generation Thinking is attributed to Native American lore. Specifically, the Six Nations of the Iroquois (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga, and Tuscarora) are given the most credit for developing and codifying the idea here in the North American continent. The idea is that we do not inherit the land from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.

Last month, for the fourth consecutive year, I was privileged to stand in front of a fifth-grade class as a volunteer in the I LOVE Science program in Northwest Florida. My purpose was to initiate the class into this excellent program of bringing scientists into the classroom. We were set that day to discuss and demonstrate, through experiments and demonstrations, how to remove pollutants from water. For kids in Northwest Florida, thoughts of water usually mean a beautiful emerald sea, pure white sand, and an idyllic day at the beach or fishing. Northwest Florida elicits beautiful memories of water for all of us residents.