About halfway through her year as Chair of the AAMVA International Board of Directors, Chrissy Nizer is surprised at how quickly the time is going. “Time goes so fast in the motor vehicle world,” she says. “It’s been a great year. It’s always filled with challenges for every chair, and this year has been like no other. I think it’s been an exciting year. As always, the motor vehicle community steps up and rebounds in a great way.”

We chatted with Chair Nizer at the 2022 Workshop and Law Institute in March, one of the first in-person meetings AAMVA has held since the beginning of the pandemic. “Online is great, and it serves an important purpose, but having those casual conversations, asking follow-up questions on something that came up during a session, you can’t do that as well online, so it’s great to be back in person.”

Being at the Workshop and Law Institute was a chance for Nizer to get back to the roots of her AAMVA history; she started off as a member of working groups and standing committees, and says she took many valuable lessons from her participation at various levels of the association. “Former Administrator John Kuo really encouraged me to get involved with AAMVA early on, and so I tagged along for some of his working groups—I think it was the Internal Fraud Working Group that was put together many years ago. He encouraged me to sign up for a standing committee, which I did, the Driver Committee,” she says. “I love the committee process. I got to meet so many people, folks who are resources even to this day. I feel like I’ve taken so much from my AAMVA experience that I can apply back home. Then when you have that challenge and you need to reach out to a colleague—phone a friend so to speak—you can do that because you’ve built those relationships throughout the years.”

Just as she was encouraged to get involved in AAMVA by her former administrator, Chair Nizer is paying it forward, introducing her staff to the work AAMVA does. “I really encourage them, in fact, I have a staff member who’s here at the Workshop—first meeting. Likewise, we had a staff member who attended the Mobile DL Pop-up Classroom. It’s really exciting to get them exposed as well.”

She says AAMVA’s podcast, AAMVAcast, is another great way to get her staff familiar with AAMVA’s work. “I encourage all the staff to listen to it because it’s a way to get you exposed to an issue for 30 minutes without being at a conference, which is not possible for all of our team.”

As Chair, she has overseen the growth of many different technologies, from the development of mDL and the digital trust service and the growth of the State-to-State Verification Service and the implementation of the Driver History Record function. Nizer says highway safety is also a top priority for her. “Our goal is always zero fatalities, and by using partnerships and leveraging the assistance we can provide each other, it helps everyone move forward.”

With the first half of her tenure in the rearview mirror, Nizer is looking forward to all the events and connections to come this Spring and Summer, including the Regional Conferences and, of course, the 2022 Annual International Conference in Baltimore.

“It’s an honor to be the Chair, and that’s the way I look at it, making sure I’m there for all the jurisdictions and the members in any way I can to support them.”