President's Letter

I hope all members and Families had a great Christmas and Holiday season! Happy New Year to all!! Time is flying by, already celebrating Presidents’ Day, Black History Month and coming up on St Patrick’s Day.

Our Chapter and El Paso Community also mourn the loss of MG Greer, a true hero and icon who recently passed away. As an organization, we will be considering ways to celebrate MG Greer’s life of service to the military and military organizations!

I want to thank all members and especially the Board of Directors (BOD) for placing their confidence in me to lead our organization and to make every effort and focus on continuing the life of our organization.

In that end, my vision for the El Paso Chapter of MOAA has three main lines of effort:
 
These three focus areas will keep the organization alive in my opinion. In order to get these areas in motion, the BOD is working details and recommendations under each area. We need your feedback and support.

We need ideas and manpower to identify fund raising opportunities and to execute them. Some ideas include golf outing, raffle a donated item, and getting sponsors. We need you, our current members to bring in friends and acquaintances who may be interested in our organization as well as going out to the Ft Bliss community to talk about our military profession, to be stewards of our profession. As for increasing our reach to the community we can start by promoting those organizations that support our military.

As for fundraising, we have a way to go however, as you were made aware in a recent email, costs of operating impact our luncheons. We were losing money on the luncheons and therefore needed to increase the amount charged to $25. We will continue to assess the costs and ensure you are getting your money worth. I appreciate your understanding and your commitment to continuing to attend our luncheons and support our great organization.

For membership, if any member brings in 2 new members I will personally pay your annual dues for 2025. I am also planning on visiting Ft Bliss area military organizations asking to speak at Officer Professional Development training events to talk about the “profession” and being “stewards of our profession”, with the plan to encourage joining organizations.

In regard to the community I would like to ask for your support of the Armed Forces YMCA (AFYMCA), led my CSM (Ret) Jerry Jacobitz, Executive Director of the AFYMCA who will be our guest speaker at the March 8th 2025 luncheon. Money is fine but more important would be baby items like diapers, wipes, etc. Please give if you can.

I am also making the effort to coordinate the opportunity to purchase polo shirts with MOAA emblem embroidered on the shirt. The cost will be approximately $25. I will be taking orders at the luncheon.

Next year will be 70 years for our El Paso Chapter. We are looking to make our 70th anniversary year one to remember. I am already in contact with MOAA National and am open to suggestions you have to make it successful celebration. Again, I thank you for your confidence in me and our BOD Team, and thank you for being a member of the El Paso Chapter of MOAA.
 
A.  Get Informed.  Understand MOAA’s Top Ten Goals for the year, and track MOAA’s progress in fighting for your compensation and benefits.
   
B.  Get involved.     “Professional Leaders belong to Professional Organizations.” Become part of the solution.  Join MOAA.  
 
“Never Stop Serving"