Oklahoma Chapter

Dear Oklahoma HFMA friends,

As my year, I mean SECOND year 🙂 as President comes to an end, I will finish my term the way I started, feeling blessed and honored to have served you as President of this great association.

Before the pandemic disrupted our normal meetings, we were doing really well at providing excellent quality finance education for our members.  In March of 2020 of course, all of that changed.  Luckily we were quickly able to adjust and our virtual meetings were born.  Our forward thinking program committee led us to new heights and brought us into the techie world smoothly and efficiently by developing a new stage for our meetings. All the while, we were able to maintain excellence by continuing to provide that high quality finance education.  In addition to annual association meetings, Zoom, Teams and other platforms also took the place of in-person board of directors meetings and other committee chair meetings. We even held virtual breakfasts and after hour socials which were so much fun and all the rage!

The strength of any transitioning association is the time it takes to look inward, embrace change and set strategy to catapult it to the next level. The officers, directors and committee chair’s began to identify areas for growth and improvement and the long-term plans and solutions it would take to reach our goals. The chapter success plans for 2020-2021/2021-2022 identified areas to carry out these plans and we moved forward into what we now call the “New Norm.” 

When finally, we were able to meet in person again in February of 2022, old Mother Nature had other plans and she decided she would throw some ice cubes at us.  That small but cozy group of attendees will forever be known to me as “The Frozen Chosen!”  And who can forget the “Over the Top Sapphire Soiree” in April of that same year, the result of several years of planning led by Past-President, Scott Sanders.  It was the highest ever attended social event and one for the ages! 

One thing that I set out to do as Chapter President was to hold our first ever Women’s Leadership Conference.  COVID made it impossible to achieve in my first year, but it finally came to fruition in July of 2022.  It was held in Stillwater and was well attended.  We started by establishing the conference theme as the Wizard of Oz, specifically the quote by Glinda the Good Witch, “You’ve always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself!” This quote has been a favorite of mine since childhood.  Not only did we hold this event but it definitely exceeded our expectations. Based on the survey results, the average conference rating was 4.833 out of 5 with 100% of those responding that they would recommend the event to others.  Huge kudos to our programming team for going above and beyond like they always do!

And finally, an extra big thank you to the officers, directors, committee chairs, members and business partners for all you did to help make my year(s) so successful!

In closing, the lifelong friends, lessons I’ve learned, leadership growth and the opportunity to achieve great things are just a few of my takeaways from my HFMA experience.  Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart! 

“It’s Not Where You Go, It’s Who You Meet Along The Way.” – Dorothy

With much love, 

Louise Kiper