This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the 2014 ASLA Advocacy Summit in St. Louis, MO put on by ASLA Government Affairs on behalf of the Idaho/Montana Chapter.  We spent a fair amount of time on Saturday focusing on how to host a site tour with elected officials and policy makers to showcase landscape architecture and how our designs can benefit a community. This was demonstrated with a site tour downtown of the award winning City Garden as an example. Other discussions focused on how to build relationships with our state Department of Transportation and the State Licensing Boards as well as Federal Impacts on Transportation Policy.

Sunday we focused on the tools and resources that ASLA provides for Advocacy and how chapters can utilize them along with how all of our states are currently handling advocacy. To wrap up we worked in groups to come up with elevator pitches to briefly describe what Landscape Architecture is.  We had a wonderful group of 36 individuals that attended the event and it was a very motivating, positive experience overall.  

Alyssa Ross

Secretary, IMASLA