A few years ago Howard Baggett, CFPIM, accepted a position with a carpet manufacturer in Virginia. But, Virginia turned out to be too far from his traditional home here in Georgia. To make peace within his family he put his resume into the Atlanta APICS Chapter's free Resume Referral Service to see what it would develop.

A carpet company in North Georgia had a Distribution Center Manager position to be filled. In my role of counseling APICS companies in employment matters, I suggested they look at the free resumes, available through the APICS Resume Referral Service, before I started a professional search assignment for them. -Voila'-. Baggett was interviewed and hired.

"You are providing a great service for APICS members and I, as a recipient, am thankful", Baggett said. Baggett has gone on to become a system implementation consultant here in Atlanta, and increasingly values networking proficiency as a needed management skill in industry today.

Evaluation surveys from our Professional Development Meetings reflect the increased value members are placing on the opportunity to network provided by our society. Job performance, within the new collaborative-commerce environment, demands that we each have networking skills for problem solving, project management and for the performance of many other day-to-day functions of our jobs.

Along with the educational subjects of our after dinner speakers, and our attendance earning points toward re-certification, your Board of Directors wants to officially reflect networking as a valued benefit of membership in APICS, the Educational Society of Resource Management.

Professional networking will be more officially encourage at our Professional Development Meetings by having a "Networking Table" as a catalyst and focal point during the 5:30PM to 6:30PM social hour. As always - and with special intent - the exchange of business cards and the discussion of mutual problems and experiences will be encouraged, and will likely spill over beyond the social hour and into your topics discussed around the tables during dinner.

Consultants will be encouraged to display their companies' literature and other general interest material at the Networking Table. Employment and recruitment assistance will still be open topics for companies seeking employees and individuals seeking employment. Hopefully, contacts will be made and bits of information exchanged that will find their way into the solutions of our problems and the performance of our jobs, and that is what APICS is here for.