A Word From the President
     Here we are in 2007 already and ready for a new year and I want to first thank all of those who made last years conference at Hood River such a great success. It take a lot of behind the scene work that a lot of times goes unrecognized. I want to recognize everyone who had a hand in the success and hope that this year’s conference in Newport will be even bigger.

    During my time as president I hope to build our membership and make the organization one to be proud to be part of. I am already looking off into 2008 and plan to have our conference in beautiful Central Oregon. We have slowly been coming back from the lean times of a few years back and I foresee good things for our future. I am starting with the basics and want to revamp our website and bring it into the new cyber-future to make it a lot more eye appealing and user friendly. We need our members to become involved with the decisions to insure we continue to grow and progress to bigger and better things. I have been a member of this organization since the 1980’s and have seen us go from over 300 attending our conferences to now smaller numbers, but I have also seen what we offer as being more relevant to our jobs.

     I plan to continue to strive and keep our members saying that “that was a great conference and I can't wait until next year.” Please feel free to contact your board with suggestions for offerings you would like to see and any ideas you have to make us stronger. Go out among your peers and tell them about OCJA and what a great organization it is and I will try and live up to those expectations. I am excited about taking over the reigns from Lisa McCurley and want to thank her personally for the great job she did during the hard times to keep us moving forward. I feel that we can go on and with your help become stronger and better as an organization as well as one we can be proud to be a part of.

Dennis Allen, President OCJA