AIA WYOMING ANNUAL FALL CONFERENCE Reinvented: Rethinking What Currently Exists BY DAN STALKER, AIA, AND ROGER STEWART, AIA AIA Wyoming hosted its 2025 Fall Conference at the Sheridan College Center for the Arts in Sheridan on Sept. 24-26 with the theme of “Reinvented.” The conference highlighted resilience and adaptability in a rapidly evolving world, with key topics including the repurposing of existing buildings, reinventing professional practice and applications of emerging technologies. The Fall Conference featured a golf tournament, three practice management talks, five world-class speakers, and six tours. Motivated by the desire to create conferences that members don’t want to miss, the planning committee started early and certainly hit the mark. Special thanks to the planning committee, comprising of Dale Buckingham, AIA, Aimee Bolton, AIA, Mitch Blake, AIA, Roger Stewart, AIA, Carl Kohut, AIA, and Executive Director Jessica Howard. Karen Kelly, AIA, and Dan Stalker, AIA, who shared the committee chairman responsibility, put on a truly exceptional conference. Practice Management Talks The conference featured a new series of talks focused on practice management on Thursday afternoon. This was doubly unique in that two of the three presentations were delivered remotely via video, an exciting new format that opens up many possibilities for engaging with future speakers. Jayme Gately and Pam Raymond, the owners of Blueprint Marketing, presented remotely from both New York and Los Angeles on the topic of marketing and “How Small Firms Can Compete and Win.” This session provided tips, tools and tactics small firms can utilize to define their competitive advantage, tell their story with more confidence and claim their stake in hypercompetitive markets. With years of strategy and tactics that secured over $1 billion in design fees, Jayme and Pam were more than qualified to provide scalable advice and encouragement to help smaller firms succeed and win. Erik Jeanette of Iconergy and Elizabeth Gilmore of Energetics teamed up to present a remote session from Denver on energy modeling called “Educating Clients and Driving the Conversation for Optimized Buildings.” Erik has managed projects and teams for commissioning, monitoring-based commissioning, retro-commissioning, ASHRAE energy audits, and HVAC DDC Design projects since 1997. Elizabeth specializes in providing pragmatic, cost-effective and resilient building energy solutions through energy modeling, sustainability consulting and building performance testing. Their presentation was based on the idea that architects generally understand the benefits of energy modeling and retro-commissioning, but sometimes struggle to communicate those benefits to clients. They provided valuable advice on how to convey the value of professional engineering services for newly constructed buildings, major renovations or additions. Carl Schweitzer, JD, of Northwest Notice Service, presented on the topic of “Preliminary Notice: Wyoming Construction Lien Notices,” exploring the Wyoming “Preliminary Notice” (also known as “Notice to Owner”) and how it applies to architectural practices. Participants learned the purpose of liens, when they should be used, the importance of preliminary notices, the process of filing and how they are enforced. Mr. Schweitzer is an attorney and the owner of Northwest Notice Service, a “pre-lien” notice service primarily servicing Montana and Wyoming. For the past 17 years, Mr. Schweitzer has conducted at least 100 seminars explaining the basics of Montana and Wyoming lien statutes. 27
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