Last week I wrote about the benefits of joining an industry association. I thought I would follow that by highlighting some of my favourite facility-related associations that I have participated in at various times within my career. I will organize them by sector so you can quickly jump to the section that is most relevant to you.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of associations, Google can give you many more I am sure. Given our current corporate footprint, the list will be exclusively focused within North America. Additionally, we are going to focus on facility and infrastructure asset management related conferences, since that is the sandbox that we play in.
A few of the associations cross multiple sectors. I am going to highlight each in the primary sector that the association serves.
If you are not an active member of any association, perhaps you can consider joining one of the ones that we are recommending.
Higher Education
The Association of Physical Plan Administrators (APPA) is the grand daddy of all higher education facilities associations. APPA operates internationally across Canada, the US and Mexico. APPA has six regional chapters (Eastern Region (ERAPPA), Southern Region (SRAPPA), Midwest (MAPPA), Central (CAPPA), Rocky Mountain (RMA) and Pacific Coast (PCAPPA) and numerous State and Provincial chapters as well that provide a great environment for staff at all levels across as organization to engage and participate. Some K-12 school districts to participate in APPA (mainly at the State-Level), but the focus is primarily higher education.
The Society for College and University Planners (SCUP) is an association that we have participated in the past, but not to the same level as APPA. There is a National organization and several state/provincial chapters that operate more locally.
K-12 Education
In the US, we participate in the National School Plant Managers Association (NSPMA). NSPMA is a national association with members from across the US. There are also many State-Level chapters that are very active within the sector.
The Association of School Business Officials (ASBO) is another large international (Canada and the US at least) K-12 association. Membership is not specifically facility focused. In fact more members are on the administrative side of things (Superintendents, Finance, etc. There are many State and Provincial chapters of ASBO as well. Several do have facility focused groups within them. For example, in Ontario the Operations Maintenance and Construction subcommittee is made up of the facilities and physical plant teams from school boards.
For facility planners within K-12 school districts, there are several state-level chapter . For example, we are active with the Florida Educational Facility Planners Association (FEFPA). I don’t believe that there is a national association that FEFPA and the other State-Level chapters are a part of. FEFPA also has involvement from some higher education institutions, but the membership is primarily higher education.
I’m going to end it here this week and next week I’ll be back to discuss State –Level, Healthcare, Municipal/Local Government as well as Commercial Real estate associations that we recommend you check out. Thanks for reading along!