Welcome to all of our regular visitors and to our new readers as well!  We have had a tremendous response to opening our publication to people outside of the APMP-NCA Chapter.  This issue follows the theme of our previous issue.  At the end of 2019, our 4th Quarter issue took a look into the past, and this issue, as the first of a new decade, is coming “Back to the Future.”  We hope you enjoy the articles, and we invite you to submit articles and ideas of your own for “future” issues.  Also, feel free to comment on and start discussions on the articles that you see here.  We would love for this to be an interactive publication!

We are very excited to announce a new recurring feature as well. If you ask anyone in our industry, they will most likely tell you that they just somehow found their way into the proposal world.  We all joke about how no one ever went to school to become a proposal manager or proposal writer, and that some skill or another that we have just somehow landed us in this crazy world of procurement.  Well, in the “future”, that may no longer be people’s story!

We have partnered with George Mason University’s Proposal Management Graduate Program and will be featuring articles in each issue from students, who are a mixture of seasoned professionals and up-and-coming proposal professionals.  The Proposal Writing Specialization at GMU consists of a two-course sequence at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the English department. The courses cover writing for nonprofit development and grants, research funding, as well as Federal Government contracting, preparing students for a wide range of career opportunities. The courses are part of the English department’s Professional and Technical Writing programs, which include undergraduate minor, graduate certificate, and full Master’s degree programs. We’re excited to have this new perspective on the industry, so please make sure to check out those articles.

Happy reading!