Hello from the Superior California Chapter of the Association of Environmental Professionals! We hope that this message finds all of our members, your loved ones, and your communities resilient and thriving here in 2025.
With a raft of new Board members who have volunteered to fill our officer roles, lead our webinars, coordinate our conferences, and to organize our social events, the last several years have been a time of rejuvenation and expansion for our Chapter. We are grateful for the opportunity to provide you and your colleagues with great programs on topics of interest for environmental practitioners, and we are thankful for all those who have attended our events and have volunteered to support us.
At these inflection points, it’s important to remind ourselves that we do this work because environmental planners and specialists from both the public and private sectors play pivotal roles in educating stakeholders, the public, decision makers, and each other. In support of that mission, we hope that our Chapter’s offerings and AEP’s annual State Conference provide environmental professionals with help needed to effectively implement state and federal environmental requirements and advance their practice. For example, over the last couple years, we have offered luncheon webinars and evening events covering topics ranging from Programmatic Vegetation Management to Tribal Consultation to VMT Mitigation, and we regularly cover CEQA Essentials, CEQA Case Law Updates, and many other topics. Last year, we also collaborated once again with the Bay Area Chapter to hold our biennial NorCal Conference in Anderson, where we provided a 2-day program covering topics ranging from Environmental Requirements for Transportation Projects and Cannabis Compliance to Drafting Effective Mitigation Measures. This conference is geared towards providing educational and networking opportunities to our Northern California members who are not able to make it to many of the events that we hold in the Sacramento or San Francisco Bay areas. We always welcome volunteers to share with their peers, so if you have a great idea, an interesting case study, or example that you would like to share at an event such as this, please reach out to us.
We also hope that re-establishing our social mixers and professional networking events provides opportunities for us all to get out and meet each other in person, plug into the environmental community, and strengthen our relationships. For example, we have held winter and summer mixers where we offered drinks, appetizers, door prizes, and professional headshots. We’ve also partnered with other environmental organizations in the area to facilitate networking opportunities. All of these events help us recruit new members and raise funds for our student scholarships. Thanks to last year’s fundraising efforts, we were proud to award $5,000 in student scholarships and we’re excited to launch another impactful scholarship program this fall!
It is through these kinds of programs and networking opportunities that the importance of your AEP membership really shows. One of our goals at AEP is to facilitate the sharing of fresh ideas and new skills as they become more integrated into everyday work. Do you have a new idea or skill or know of someone who does? We would love to hear about it and would love to have you consider presenting your idea during one of our monthly luncheons. This is one of the best ways AEP can help our members learn about new or upcoming trends in our industry. Please reach out to one of our Board members and let us know your idea.
We hope to see you at a program or a social mixer sometime soon. If you have any interest in volunteering with AEP, we have room on our Chapter Board for At-Large members and we would love to invite your energy into the mix. If so, please feel free to contact us and we will plug you in.
Wishing you all the best,
Neil Peacock
Superior California Chapter-President
Updated Sept 7, 2025 by Reid Walley
