From the President’s Desk
IN Rep. Matt Lehman, NCOIL President
2020—What a year it has been! As I enter my second term as NCOIL President- words that I never thought I would hear or write – now is a great time to both look back on what NCOIL accomplished in 2020 and at what lies ahead in 2021.
Rep. Matt Lehman, IN President Thomas B. Considine NCOIL CEO Asm. Ken Cooley, CA Vice President I first want to make sure to thank my fellow Officers and the NCOIL staff for being so flexible and helpful during these unprecedented times. We all encountered things we never expected and had to adapt on-the-fly, but we remained calm and focused on ensuring that the organization will be on sound footing when we all get back to normal.
This time last year, we had finished our very successful Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas, and we never could have imagined what the world would look like today. I certainly never thought I would be using Zoom, which I had never heard of then, so much – or the myriad of other platforms where we still failed to unmute.
Speaking of Zoom, it became an important tool, enabling us to hold all three national meetings in 2020 with some level of in-person participation. Our Spring Meeting in Charlotte was largely “business as usual” but just the week after the meeting, the host hotel actually closed due to COVID. Indeed, for many reading this column, the Spring Meeting was the last time they traveled out of state.
After postponing our Summer Meeting that was scheduled for July in Jersey City, we were still able to hold our two remaining national meetings in a hybrid format. We were still able to have legislators and interested parties from all over the country participate, and those who were in the meeting room utilized their best social distancing practices. We are very happy with the turnout at all of the meetings and are pleased that we had such good attendance, both in-person and via Zoom. Changing times calls for creativity, and I know that we were not lacking in that aspect of our planning.
With such uncertainty in the world, over the course of 2020, we still had 736 total meeting attendees at our three national meetings consisting of113 legislators representing 25 states. We also held several interim Committee meetings and set record highs in attendance.
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