Dear ULI South Carolina Friends,

What an amazing privilege to follow in the footsteps of Robert Morgan as District Council Chair of ULI South Carolina. Robert has been such a dedicated and impactful leader and has left our District Council a much stronger and sustainable organization. Thank you, Robert, for the generous contribution of your time and intellect. We look forward to your continued leadership as Chair of the Governance Committee.

With the momentum of the past two years, I am excited about what we can accomplish during the next two years. ULI is a mission-focused organization, and I believe that our mission binds together the diversity of our members into a dynamic force that is constantly improving the long-term balance of resilient development, human capacity and healthy natural environments in our state and across the southeast.

The Urban Land Institute provides leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide.

We are leaders in our communities and, collectively, we are working to ensure our communities are sustainable and thriving. ULI SC brings leaders together and provides creative and ingenious opportunities for each of us to continue to develop as leaders and shapers of the built environment.

ULI SC is recognized as leader within ULI Americas. Over the past 12 years of my involvement with ULI SC, I have witnessed our organization perpetually evolve and step out ahead of waves of change, recession, uncertainty, new markets and global impacts in order to give our members and our state opportunities to collaborate, challenge the status quo and to strategically impact how we can best grow. Consider for a moment the past 15 years…

• Growing by Choice or Chance
• Three Reality Checks: Upstate, Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester, and the Midlands
• Sustainable Leadership Institute… the first in the country
• Capital Markets Conference… growing each year
• Carolinas Meetings… growing in numbers and impacts
• Regional Initiative Councils
• Inclusivity Leadership Initiative
• Women’s Leadership Initiative
• Young Leaders Group
• Urban Plan
• Thriving local programs

I don’t know for certain what is next, but I guarantee that ULI SC will be responsive yet proactive, intentional and inspiring connectors of people to place and opportunities. This is how we will continue to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and ensure our communities continue to thrive.

ULI is committed to the following, and my hope is that we all work together to advance these commitments in South Carolina.

• Bringing together leaders
• Fostering collaboration
• Exploring issues
• Advancing land use policies
• Sharing knowledge
• Sustaining a diverse global (and state-wide) network

July 31 – August 1, our Management Committee will meet to update the ULI SC Strategic Plan. It will be a joy to note our accomplishments over the past two years, to rethink priorities and to envision where we want to be over the next two years. With the leadership and expert management of Amy Barrett and the new management committee, this is an awesome time to be a member of and to participate in all that ULI SC offers. We welcome your ideas for programs, meeting and educational topics and look forward to sharing the updated plan with you.

I have always been impressed by the sense of shared responsibility for contributing to our communities among ULI members. While we may compete for projects, ULI members are generous in creating relationships based on trust, respect and a recognition that we all succeed when one succeeds. ULI provides that common ground for us to come together, to learn from each other, to celebrate our successes and to do our best for South Carolina.

To quote Plato: “You don’t design the future by what you do now; you do now based on your vision of the future.”

I believe in the mission of ULI, and I believe that we have a pretty terrific future in South Carolina. I hope that you will engage in all that ways that you can and help us shape this vision so that we can keep on doing better and better in pursuit of this vision.

Best,

Irene Dumas Tyson
ULI SC District Council Chair