Submitted by Peter Koonce and Kimberly Leung, Western District International Directors

The ITE International Board of Direction (IBOD) held a one-day meeting at the ITE Headquarters offices in Washington, DC.  The meeting took place on January 11th.

During the official IBOD meeting, the Board took several important actions:

• Approved the 2026 budget for ITE International, which includes additional funding set aside for a major upgrade of its back-office association management software. This system helps support everything from members paying dues, registering for webinars, submitting continuing education credits, and registering for the annual meeting.
• Continued to receive briefings on the Safety Roadmap & Action Plan, in addition to providing final input toward the Safety Pledge that will be launched this Spring.
• Discussed the upcoming Strategic Plan update that is now underway, and the All-Member Survey that is currently live (closes February 15).
• Approved an updated and streamlined process for the development of Recommended Practices.

Other significant updates included:

• Continued to share best practices across the Districts, and sharing ideas for solving problems or challenges that might be in progress across the Districts/Sections/Chapters.
• Reviewed the status of our Brand Evolution effort and shared challenges/successes across Districts and Sections in pursuit of updating websites, About Us messages, and logos.
• Held a brainstorming session on the vision and growth opportunities for ITE’s global members outside of the United States and Canada.

Future Annual Meetings:

• July 19-22, 2026 – Detroit, MI (with ITE Great Lakes District)
• July 25-28, 2027 – Calgary, Alberta (with ITE Canada District)
• July 23-26, 2028 – Albuquerque, NM (with ITE Mountain District)

Important Communications across Districts/Sections/Chapters

• All Member Survey is live until February 15. Any District that can get 20% or more of its members participating will receive a $500 donation to its scholarship fund.
• Voting for International VP will take place from Feb 4 to Mar 4. Ballots will be emailed to all voting members.
• ITE member services will be unavailable the week of Jan 26 while we implement the changeover to our new association management software. This will affect everything from renewing membership to publication purchases to certification registration to training and webinars. The new system should be live by February 2^nd.
• ITE’s Virtual Spring Conference is March 17-18 – registration is now open on the ITE website!