I was elected to the assistant director’s seat of Higher Education in 2018 and in 2019 I assumed the director’s seat when it was vacated. I have represented the values of higher education and our specific needs for the last two years. In addition to being a director I am the president and a steward of my local at Eastern Oregon University as well as the general council delegate and bargaining delegate. During my term I wish to continue to shed light on the unique perspective of classified staff in the higher education environment. I also wish to continue my work to create a union community that is more cohesive in the rural areas of the state. There is a large divide in our union between rural and suburban areas and rural areas often feel unheard and undervalued. I want to continue to shorten that gap and help find common ground. In the region we continue to try to build a sense of community within 503 and with our brothers and sisters in other unions. We are working to get momentum behind a labor day picnic for the tri-county area. It is our long term goal to have this be a multi union, multi county picnic in order to highlight the community of workers and foster a more unified community. Those of us on the planning committee would love to see a point where union workers from this region get together and build a house for habitat for humanity. I feel we are facing a difficult two years as we move beyond the pandemic. Reopening of our schools will be full of unknowns and sometimes difficult situations, but we must get there. It will be extremely important that we fight to have our voices heard in that process. We will need the union to fight along side us to make that happen. It is also vitally important that we build and retain deep connections with our members and the pandemic has put a spotlight on the isolation of the rural areas from the union. We will have work to do if we are to re-engage some of the more isolated members. I believe this is work worth doing. I hope you will support me to continue to be a voice for higher education and rural members over the next two years.