It has been an honor to serve as your president for the last year. I am grateful to our 2024 Board members, staff partners, and all of our volunteers who have made 2024 a productive year. As I mentioned at the start of the year, our volunteers are critical to our work and we are grateful for your dedication. I hope that our volunteers had fun, were able to develop new professional relationships and possible friendships this year and are proud of the work you accomplished! I also hope that our 2025 volunteers and future volunteers are able to “follow the fun” and find volunteering as an opportunity for professional growth. I look forward to meeting our new 2025 committee leaders at the 2025 NSGC Leadership Summit.

 

I want to commend the Board of Directors and our Smithbucklin staff partners on their thoughtful approach to developing our new strategic plan and the transition from a “small size” organization structure to a “mid-size” organizational framework to support our rapidly growing membership. A very thorough review of our organization and future opportunities was completed through a series of strategic planning modules and culminated in the final strategic plan which we will be announcing later this month. If you have not yet had a chance to watch the 2024 State of Society talk from the annual conference in New Orleans, I encourage you to do so as I cover a lot of NSGC’s activities and accomplishments in that talk. The 43^rd Annual Conference in New Orleans was a success, and it was incredible to see all of the work that is happening in our field. It was also fun to see our organization warmly welcome our colleagues from around the world who had joined us for the NSGC Professional Issues Panel: Genetic Counseling around the Globe: Insights, Lessons, and Collaboration for a Future-Proof Profession.

 

Immediately following the conference we began onboarding our new lobbying firm, Faegre Drinker. I have been impressed with their energy, enthusiasm and how quickly they began advocating for our bill on the Hill.

 

October also kicked off a series of conferences and I am grateful for the many opportunities to represent our organization at the Connecticut Genetic Counselors' Association Annual Conference, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Genomics Roundtable on Practice Guidelines, American Society of Human Genetics Annual Conference and the Milken Future of Health Summit. During these events I was impressed by the other genetic counselors presenting as well as the increasing level of respect I witnessed for our profession.

 

This week I had the opportunity to present the NSGC Annual Business Meeting to review the major accomplishments for the year, the society's financial position and new program and initiatives for the coming year. The Board is still busy finalizing the details of our new strategic plan, budget, and new Advocacy, Payer & Government Relations Infrastructure before the end of the month and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with such a dedicated group of individuals who are passionate about our organization and the future of our profession. Thank you to our awesome Smithbucklin staff partners and public relations firm, PCI, who all work to support our vision and goals. I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to thank Sara Pirzadeh-Miller, NSGC President-Elect and Meghan Carey, NSGC’s Executive Director for all of their support. It has been an incredible experience working so closely with both of you this year.

 

As I sign off for my last President’s column and pass the baton to Sara on January 1^st, I am extremely hopeful for the future of our profession and look forward to the continued progress our organization will make in 2025 and beyond. Thank you for the amazing opportunity to serve as your president.

 

With gratitude,

Colleen

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