Happy New Year! It is an honor to serve as your 2024 NSGC President. Deepti Babu continued the tradition of sending me a text in the first minutes of January 1st as she passed the baton. I am grateful to Deepti, our staff partners, Board members, and past NSGC presidents for everything you have taught me during my President-Elect term. As we are gearing up for our inaugural Leadership Summit and first 2024 Board Meeting, I wanted to take a moment to share with you what I’m thinking about as we kick off the year.

First, I would like to welcome back our returning volunteers and also welcome our new volunteers. Last fall, as President-Elect, I had the honor of leading the 2024 Call for Volunteers process. I enjoyed reading all of the incredible applications and assisting in the selection of our 2024 NSGC Committee Vice Chairs. I was impressed with the dedication to NSGC demonstrated by our returning volunteers. I was excited by all of the new volunteers who noted the changes we have been making in our organization and now want to get involved. Our volunteers are critical to our work on the NSGC strategic plan and we are so grateful for your dedication. From the time I began volunteering with NSGC to today, I have learned a lot that has been helpful for my professional development. I also cherish the friendships that have developed over the years since I began as a member of the Access and Service Delivery Committee in 2015.

We are in the final year of our 2022-2024 Strategic Plan. Our committees, staff, and Board will be actively working to continue moving this plan forward. Simultaneously, the Board and our staff partners will be preparing to develop the NSGC 2025-2027 strategic plan. As I mentioned in my incoming address, our organization and profession are in a rapid phase of growth and we are currently on track to have over 10,000 ABGC certified genetic counselors by 2030. I feel it’s important for NSGC to embrace the growth of the genetic counseling profession and evolve with it. As a result, the first half of the year will be a period of reflection on what is working well, frank discussions about challenges and frustrations, and critical evaluation of our organizational structure as we prepare for our next strategic plan. Over the last year, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the future path of our profession. I love thinking about where we could be in 5 or 10 years and then figuring out how we can get there. We have outgrown our “small size” structure and we need to transition to a “mid-size” organizational framework to support our nearly 5,000 current members and a rapidly growing membership. As I mentioned in my incoming address, although there will be several strategic plans before 2030, I would like us to think about the next three years as the time to establish a firm base for success in 2030. As we look toward the future, I am also excited to learn more about the international genetic counseling community and how NSGC can work with our colleagues around the world. I will ask the Board of Directors to embrace the growth of our profession and our organization, and think about how NSGC can best fulfill its mission of advancing “the various roles of genetic counselors in health care by fostering education, research, and public policy to ensure the availability of quality genetic services.”

 

I am excited to spend the next year as your President thinking strategically to create a vision of where we are going, and empowering our collective team of volunteers, staff and members with the tools necessary to begin to execute the next strategic plan. It is an honor to be the 2024 NSGC President, and as your president I look forward to representing the voice of genetic counselors.

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