Incoming 1988-89 ASLA President, Brian Kubota, has outlined his agenda for the Society in an exclusive interview with Kay Tiller, a longtime friend. Here are his plans for the upcoming year.

Our prime focus will be on the refining and implementation of the Long Range Plan set forth by ASLA,?EUR??,,????'?? Kubota said. His Chairmanship Task Force restructuring the Society while he was president-elect has given him a direct insight into the needs of the Society and the ways in which the Long Range Plan can be implemented.

Listed below are the facets of the Plan to which Kubota will devote time and for which he has specific goals in mind:

Chapter and Membership Services

Reinstate the membership drive immediately in order to get more landscape architects into the ASLA fold.

Improve the service to the entire membership with better products and more communication between the national office and the Chapters, Sections and individual members.

Education and Professional Development

Improve activity in the Professional Practice Institute by further developing a practice and partnership program. This program, headed by Bob Mortensen and Pat Moore, will aid members within the three forms of practice ?EUR??,,????'??? academic, government and private practice in improving methods of doing business, in developing business and in communicating with the public.

Building better communications between the academic and the professional practice segments of the Society. One specific is to hold a conference ?EUR??,,????'??? if funds are available ?EUR??,,????'??? in which these two groups can meet and discuss common problems and work out solutions.

A special addition to the 1989 ASLA Annual Meeting in Orlando would be added which would be called ?EUR??,,????'??Mobile Labs?EUR??,,????'?? in which tours would be geared directly to reflect the educational session topics. This would provide more opportunity for the wide range and varied interests of the landscape architect to be satisfied.

A Task Force, chaired by Trustee James Stansbury, has been charged with defining and communicating ASLA?EUR??,,????'???s relationship to The Foundation?EUR??,,????'??+programatic, organization structure and financial?EUR??,,????'??+resulting in better support for the endevors of The Foundation.

Public Service

Carry on and further improve the public relations program to let people know who we are and what we do. ?EUR??,,????'??We are the professionals who work very hard to design a balance between the built and the natural environment.

Develop a better alliance with the other design professionals, i.e. AIA, ASC, ASPE, APA.

Further the promotion of the Community Assistance Team (CAT) Program on both a national and local scale. This program entails design action by professionals, acting in a advisory capacity, on projects that better the environmental elements within a community. This formulation of ideas presented to the governmental entity involved ?EUR??,,????'??? and then, a local landscape architectural firm would be called in to implement the plan. (This was done in Cincinnati, San Francisco and Baltimore and is ?EUR??,,????'??on line?EUR??,,????'?? for Seattle.) This program leaves something for the community to show that the landscape architectural profession has been there and left something for their ?EUR??,,????'??host city.?EUR??,,????'??

Information Systems

Under Publications Chair/Trustee, Gary Meisner and Publisher, James Truelove, the publications within the profession ?EUR??,,????'??? both Landscape Architecture Magazine and Garden Design ?EUR??,,????'??? will be improved. This will entail improvement in both the editorial contents and the graphics. (A ?EUR??,,????'??new?EUR??,,????'?? LAM will appear with some of these improvements in December 1988.)

The creation of a Publications Management Board to oversee and implement the changes which have to be agreed upon.

The creation of a professional library at our new headquarters building in Washington, DC. This library will be comprised of all the literature pertinent to landscape architecture that is available.

Sponsor ?EUR??,,????'??? with other design professionals ?EUR??,,????'??? the ?EUR??,,????'??America, the Beautiful?EUR??,,????'?? conference. Headed by Bob Ross of the U.S. Forest Service and Dr. Richard Chenowith, this conference would focus national attention on the aesthetic values of the American land and would provide a forum for the exchange of contemporary knowledge and experience. It would build new bridges between the design arts, key professional businesses, industry andthe environmental community. It would also set the stage for a renewed committment and a sustained effort aimed at the stewardship of the aesthetic values of the land.

Finances

Discuss and plan all Society programs from a fiscal standpoint.

Deal with financial reserves and in vestments, such as the building reserve, the research and development reserves and the operational reserves.

Due to the increase in membership?EUR??,,????'??+now at 10,000 members ?EUR??,,????'??? ASLA is in a different position that it was when we opted for self-management under Lane Marshall in 1978. A great deal of work is involved in serving three times the membership we had then. Costs have risen and we have to realize that in implementing the Long Range Plan.

Establish a Task Force, headed by Ray Uecker, to study non-dues income so we can keep the dues as low as possible and can use non-dues income for producing materials and providing other services.

Under the leadership of Chair/Trustee, Jerry Soesbee, and the committee on budget review and reserves investment, we will work toward targeting dues income to go directly to membership services while attempting to have ASLA products totally self-sustaining.

The research and development reserves will be evaluated. We would like to set up a loan program from these funds which would be used only by individual members or groups of members to do research that will affect the membership of ASLA.

To sum up the entire program which Brian Kubota sees his challenge as President of ASLA, we will quote from the ?EUR??,,????'??Concepts and Aims?EUR??,,????'?? which he wrote before being elected President-Elect of the Society last year:

?EUR??,,????'??As President of the Society, I would like to work on enhancing and refining the numerous amounts of innovative and ambitious programs that have begun, both internal and external to the profession. An assessment of existing programs would have to be accomplished, prioritized and executed as resources are available, both financial and people. In order to accomplish this, I would like to see: 1) the development of membership involvement in ASLA, integrating younger members with senior, experienced members of the committees; 3) a method for integrating the three forms of practice ?EUR??,,????'??? private, public and academic ?EUR??,,????'??? to facilitate communication and determine the needs of each, as it is currently essential to the future of the ASLA; 4) a model for enhancement of public perception of landscape architecture relative to each Chapter?EUR??,,????'???s needs (the perception varies in different parts of the country); 5) promote fiscal responsibility and prioritization of programs; and 6) improve communication within the profession within our present products (publications) as to content and disbursement, possibly utilizing some of our present products to improve public perception of landscape Brian Kubota, ASLA, will become a Fellow in the ASLA in Seattle, having been nominated by the Prairie Gateway Chapter and accepted by the College of Fellows.

A native of the island of Kauai, Hawaii, Kubota received his B.S. in Landscape Architecture from Iowa State University. With special interests in land design and master planning, he interned with a nationally-known private practice firm in Kansas City and served as Assistant Planning Director of Lawerence Kansas before joining the multi-displinary firm of PKG Design Group in 1969. He became co-owner and vice president of that firm in 1972.

In 1978, he established and serves as president of LANDPLAN Engineering, a multi-disiplinary firm providing engineering, landscape architecture and planning services. With both firms, he serves as corporate manager and is responsible for site and utilities design, drainage studies, landscape design, land-use studies, development planning and recreational facilities design.

Brian has been an Associate and Member of the ASLA since 1967. He has served as Trustee Chair for Public Services & External Affairs Committees; a member of the Constitution and By-Laws Review Task Forces and the Leadership & Management Task Force; and has Chaired the National Officers Nominating Committee and the Nomination Review Task Force. At the Chapter level, he gas served as the Trustee of the Prairie Gateway Chapter on two separate occasions, been a member of the Committee to Review Licensure in Kansas and chaired the Committee on Inter-professional Development.

Brian has won numerous awards for his work and accolades come from many directions including those offered by his clients, not the least of which is Robert G. Billings, president of Alvamar, a 3,000 acre planned community of residential, multifamily, office parks and research facilities for which Kubota did the master planning. He describes Brian Kubota as ?EUR??,,????'??great.?EUR??,,????'??

The program for ASLA which Brian Kubota has set forth for 1988-89 is an ambitious project, but many current members of ASLA are sure that he will carry it out and this will be one of the finest years that the Society will experience in its entire history!

Kay Tiller