As I am just about halfway through my term as chair, I want to share some thoughts and observations. It has been an unbelievable opportunity to travel to different meetings, conferences and events—although at times it has been a bit tiring and frustrating getting there! But once there, the hospitality in the different regions has been outstanding.

It has been informative and rewarding seeing how we all approach the same or similar problems and develop outcomes that meet our individual jurisdictional and operational needs, and we are doing it in a way that improves our customer service and overall image, often serving as models for other jurisdictions to follow.

Two sessions in particular that I want to highlight were the recent Combined Committee meeting and the Leadership Academy.

Having served as a board member for more than five years, I have always been aware of the work of the various committees and the excellent products they generate to help guide us on white papers, model legislation, policies and best practices. At the closing session of the recent Combined Committee meeting, it was amazing to hear the individual committee chairs provide a summary of what each group accomplished over an intense two days, what their next steps would be and any recommendations they would take to the AAMVA board for consideration. What impressed me more was sitting in and observing each committee at work. The level of commitment and the depth and thoughtfulness of discussions gave me a better understanding not only of the committee process but also why the work product is of such high quality.

I’ve had the opportunity to have four members of the Rhode Island DMV team attend previous sessions of the Leadership Academy, and to a person, they all came back with nothing but praise for the program. I can see why!

I attended one of the 2026 Leadership Academy sessions, and it was clear that the class bonded and genuinely opened up, sharing personal thoughts, experiences and self-doubts about their individual leadership styles. As a group, they discussed challenges, supported one another, offered solutions and, hopefully, learned how to be better leaders when they return to their organizations. I would highly recommend that my fellow administrators nominate team members for future sessions of this phenomenal program.

I’d also like to direct your attention to two of the articles in this issue. The first, “Title Wave,” is timely for me because we have started the process of moving to e-titling. The article gives a broad overview of e-titling and offers a strong case for jurisdictions to move in that direction. AAMVA has developed a toolkit to help jurisdictions get started and capitalize.

The second article, “Driving Engagement,” offers us examples of how the California Highway Patrol, the New Hampshire DMV and the Colorado DMV used social media to communicate a variety of messages to their constituents to enhance safety, encourage REAL ID adoption or help customers better prepare for their visit to the DMV. Social media is a powerful tool that lets us reach our customers with messaging we can control and in a more timely manner than traditional media outlets.