President's Message:
Dear Academy Members,
It was great to see so many of you at CSM in Houston. It was by far the best CSM in years for the Academy, with exceptional educational programming and networking events. Our Teammates event and DEI social were among the many highlights, with hundreds in attendance.
I hope to see even more of you at our Annual Meeting this July in Nashville.
Click here for more information on our Annual MeetingFor those not in attendance at CSM, I thought I would share my President’s address from the business meeting as my last newsletter as your President.
2024 was another successful year for the Academy on all fronts.
After successfully revising our bylaws last year, the Executive and Finance Committees were able to budget a small increase in dues for 2025. This increase has allowed us to invest back into the Academy to fulfill two huge initiatives.
One, we added a full-time Director of Membership, Gabi Groce, to our home office. This will be a huge addition to the Academy moving forward. Gabi has already hit the ground running.
Two, we were able to outsource the development of our long-overdue new website. We thank you for your patience as we roll out improvements to the website, our learning center, and an upcoming community over the next several months.
Our refreshed Annual Meeting was a huge success last summer, with over 300 attendees, the largest attendance in many years, and raving reviews from attendees. With our new partnership with AOSSM, we will continue to improve our Annual Meeting even more this summer.
We will be hosting our annual meeting alongside AOSSM’s annual meeting in Nashville this July. I have been working on this for a few years and am proud to have fostered this collaboration. By partnering with AOSSM, we can build a better conference in better locations. Our members will also have the opportunity to attend AOSSM, which is one of the premier sports medicine conferences of the year. We will now have better access to AOSSM surgeons to speak as part of our faculty.
This year’s faculty and agenda were just recently announced. It looks like it will be an even better meeting again this summer. I hope to see you there.
I am also incredibly proud to report that the Academy stayed within our financial budget and did not have a loss of income for the second year in a row. This is the first time since 2016, almost ten years ago.
Every penny spent and every penny earned has been reported to the membership in detail. As a non-profit, our goal is not to necessarily make money. But it’s also our fiduciary responsibility to ensure we do not spend more money than we earn. Every dollar goes back into the Academy for member benefits. We have been able to build back an emergency fund and invest in our future by increasing our long-term investment account by almost 50% to over $600k.
The Academy is financially stable again and in a position of strength moving forward.
My goals as president that I imposed on myself were lofty.
We’ve led with unprecedented transparency, which the membership deserves. We completely revised our bylaws, policies, and procedures, ensuring that the Academy always followed proper governance. We restructured our committees and SIGs to align better with the membership's needs. We developed a comprehensive educational portfolio to provide cutting-edge education to our members at various events in various formats. We developed career success paths to foster the next generation of leaders within our Academy.
As my tenure draws to a close this summer, I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to the many people who have played an essential role in the Academy.
Thank you to our Executive Director, Cory Martin, and our home office. Cory’s guidance and unwavering support have been instrumental over the last few years, and I am immensely grateful for his partnership throughout my presidency as we battled many challenges together.
Thank you to all who have served with me on the Executive Committee - Mike Mullaney, Katie Lucas, Jill Thein-Nissenbaum, Lenny Macrina, Rob Manske, and more recently, Terri Chimilewski, Katie Lynch, Andrew Naylor, and Airelle Giordano.
They are all busy professionals with multiple jobs and families, volunteering countless hours of their time for the benefit of the Academy. I can’t thank you enough.
I want to extend a special thanks to my Vice President, Mike Mullaney. We spent a lot of time on the phone, often talking more to each other than our families, many weeks.
As I enter the last few months of my term as your president, I can’t help but be filled with pride and optimism.
I am extremely proud of what the Executive Committee has accomplished during my presidency. The challenges, the countless volunteer hours, the long nights, the hard decisions — it wasn’t easy.
Having worked in baseball for the majority of my career, I often joke that I now understand what an umpire must feel like. Sometimes, when you try to make both sides of a disagreement happy, you just end up disappointing both sides.
But then I remember why I ran for office in the first place. When you stay focused on making decisions based on the best interest of all 7000 of our members, it’s easy to say with confidence that we tried our best to follow the academy's mission and vision.
That’s all we can do.
My goal was to leave the Academy better than when I started for the next president. I’m confident that this has happened and optimistic that Airelle Giordano’s leadership will continue to propel the Academy forward.
Your trusting me to lead this Academy was humbling. I am forever deeply thankful for the opportunity.
Mike Reinold
President, AASPT
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Upcoming Events:
Journal Club: Clinical Implications for Athletes Returning from Concussion April 30th @ 8:30 PM ET - Register here!
Rehabilitation after BEAR®: Key Guidelines for the Physical Therapist
May 21st @ 8:00 PM ET - Register here!
Journal Club: Bone Stress Injuries Management in Running Athletes
May 28th @ 7:30 PM ET - Register here!
Journal Club: Exertional Heat Illness
June 10th @ 7:00 PM ET - Register here!
Annual Meeting | July 11 - 12
Early Bird Deadline: May 1st!
The AASPT Annual Meeting is set to take place in the vibrant city of Nashville, Tennessee, promising an exciting opportunity for professionals in Sports Physical Therapy. This highly sought-after event will bring together leading experts, practitioners, and researchers to learn, network, and exchange cutting-edge insights.
Adding to the anticipation, this year's meeting will be held alongside the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) Annual Meeting, with AASPT attendees having the option to purchase a one-day pass (July 10) to attend AOSSM. Beyond the conference, attendees can immerse themselves in the unique charm of Music City, renowned for its rich history, live music scene, and warm Southern hospitality.
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