For Vice President

John Benson, AIA

Registered for over 25 years, after education at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale, John Benson has been an AIA member for over 20. He has lived and practiced in upstate New York for the last decade, most of that time serving at Cornell University as a director of facilities. Last fall he returned to New England to be director of planning at Flansburgh Associates in Boston.

He has for many years been a leader in chapter, regional, and national AIA. A regional director on the AIA’s Board of Directors, 1998–2000, he was a charter member of the PIA ExCom, which has sucessfully improved relations between the AIA and its PIAs, as well as the quality of PIA programs and member services. On the ExCom of AIA New York State, and that of the unstaffed Upstate New York chapter, he was a consensus builder, improving communication among those holding disparate views on approaches to regional issues. In his original chapter, the Boston Society of Architects, he helped develop its moribund annual meeting/trade show into today’s dynamic 12,000-person BuildBoston.

In addition to AIA experience—and experience as a ‘client’—Benson brings the AIA board unique perspectives, from allied groups such as SCUP (college planners), where he sits on its North Atlantic Regional Council, and SMPS, in which he has been a Fellow since 1994, and from practice in very different markets.

Our beloved profession—and its market—are in major transition, so the AIA had better be! With your support, I aim to make sure that the AIA moves quickly and reliably into the e-Business Millennium and, in doing so, uses new, more effective ways to communicate with members—and components—to better learn and meet their needs. This means:
• Reassessing and re-energizing the AIA’s engagement in e-business, through means other than AECdirect
• Strengthening our PIAs and Knowledge Center, so members can rely on these to support them as expert leaders
• Making TIMSS work—now!
• Dramatically improving communication with the AIA’s own members, so they can see and utilize services devised to support and empower them in their practices.
Our AIM strategic plan is some of the best thinking ever done by the AIA. I will ensure that we measure all we do by it and that we unflaggingly pursue its objectives, including:
• Engagement with our marketplace
• Knowledge delivery
• Developing students into architects
• Advocating our values, such as livable communities.

Please give me this opportunity to serve you and our Institute. I look forward to talking with you!

Copyright 2001 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.