Staff Corner: May 2022

Spring is in Full Swing!  

Ahhh, Spring is here again! And with the return of these warmer days comes our 2nd Annual Rising Leaders Topgolf Tournament! To compete with last year’s class, these cohorts SOLD OUT the teams’ portion of the tournament a month ahead of last year’s class! But don’t despair if you missed the chance to sponsor or purchase a team! We still have opportunities available to join the party!  

Caddy tickets are still available, which include 1 complimentary opportunity at the Hole-in-One competition (for a $10,000 cash prize), 1 complimentary opportunity at the Longest Drive, and 1 entry to join us for the party where you can network, enjoy some tasty eats and drinks, and check out our raffle items*!  

There are also still opportunities to sponsor the raffle, as well! For any raffle sponsorships $500 and above, we will pitch in a Caddy ticket with 1 entry to the Longest Drive Competition and 1 entry to the Hole-in-One Competition!  

*Raffle items to be on the lookout for: Astros tickets, Golf-related packages, JBL speakers, Range Finder, and Garmin watch are among this year’s bounty!   

Speaking of the raffle sponsors, I want to be sure to send out a hearty thank you to this year’s Masters of Raffle Sponsors: Studio Red Architects, SWA Group, Hollaway Environmental, Alpha Testing, QC Labs, and Class 5 member Harry Thompson! 

Spring at WHA is also the annual kick-off for a new Rising Leaders class, and we welcomed our 7th cohort on April 22nd with an insightful discussion about our history, mission and vision, who and what West Houston is, and what we do to help make this community a quality place to live, work and play. The last time I wrote about this class, we had not yet met our new class members, but we were hopeful they would be ready to dive into the thoughtful and strategic art of adding resiliency to our understanding of quality planned development. These guys did not disappoint! They had thoughtful questions about the economic and demographic makeup of our footprint and how we apply that knowledge to our Development Maps, our Economic and Demographics Reports, and the diligent work of our Workforce and Education Committee. This group’s experienced curiosity is only matched by their enthusiastic commitment to next year’s 3rd Annual Rising Leaders Topgolf Tournament, which has already been decided on for May 25th, 2023! This class is going to take a committed and well thought out approach to making PLAY a part of a resilient, quality planned community in West Houston! 

As always, we would like to acknowledge and thank our Rising Leaders supporters, without whom these class sessions wouldn’t be nearly as interesting (or possible): Thank you to Steve Spillette and Ty Jacobson of CDS Strategies for always providing the best customized data for our group; to Sarah Martin of Katy ISD and Todd Burrer of Inframark for lending us their expertise on education and workforce in West Houston and how we use data to create that quality pipeline for our community, and to our fearless leadership, Board Chair Marlene Gafrick of MetroNational and Board Vice Chair Lee Lennard of BGE for their warm welcome! 

If you have questions about any of our Rising Leaders events or class sessions, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Jennifer@westhouston.org