Committed to Being the Best	FALL 2004

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

I would like to review our recent Scholarship Banquet for those who were unable to attend. It was held at the Italian Community Center in the Old Third Ward downtown. This is an elegant, modern Italianesque dining venue that seemed very suited to our scholarship benefit gathering. After an hour of networking and greeting, we were led in a blessing by Father Frank and then served an elegant meal. Many positive comments were made about how well prepared the food was. And as happens so regularly at TAMI dinner events, the atmosphere of the room was full of fellowship and enjoyment of being with professional peers. We were lucky to have Dennis Tam, the Transportation Clubs International President attending and he briefly discussed the progress of TCI and its future direction. Following Dennis was Eric Reinolt, Director of the Port of Milwaukee, our main speaker. We have all heard of the challenge that securing our ports from terrorism will be. Eric put it in very concrete terms. The struggle he described is between having a small port like Milwaukee's required to take security measures equivalent to those taken at the mega-ports like Long Beach, New York, and Jacksonville. The regulations are written for all the ports, disregarding size and threat level. New infrastructure requirements such as fencing and surveillance are much more burdensome to a port the size of Milwaukee's. It all falls to the bottom line; some business for the port has been run away by increased costs and complicated security screening procedures. The evening closed with the scholarship raffle, with some excellent prizes especially the coveted Sybaris evening (congratulations Tom Krenz). The scholarship fund benefited to the tune of several hundred dollars. Let me express the club's appreciation to those who donated prizes and to Sharon Glen who arranged the evening at the Italian Community Center. My goal in reviewing the evening is to share the fellowship and education with those who could not attend. I speak for the board in saying that we have set ourselves to increase the educational and professional value of TAMI events. At the same time we want to preserve the great fellowship that we have always had in our club. I think that this scholarship banquet was a step towards realizing those goals. If there are any topics you would like to hear and you believe that your fellow transportation practitioners would find educational, please let me or any board member know. We are already planning the spring recognition dinner and we anticipate the featured speakers to be discussing the city economic development and transportation responses our infrastructure in a focused manner. The date is set for February 23, 2005. It should be another great evening of professional growth and fellowship. George Murphy