As a MOAA Life Member and having served on the MOAA Board of Directors for the last four years, it is an honor and privilege to now continue serving as your Chairman of the Board of Directors, and continue the work of our previous board chair, Gen. Walter “Skip” Sharp, USA (Ret). We also honor the exceptional leadership of Lt. Gen. Dana “DT” Atkins, USAF (Ret), as our President and CEO. Dana retires from his position after seven years, and MOAA is stronger because of his leadership. As Dana departs, we welcome Lt. Gen. Brian “BK” Kelly, USAF (Ret), as our incoming president and CEO. I know each of you join me in wishing them and their families all the success in their respective futures.

[RELATED: MOAA Announces New President & CEO, Chairman and Board Members]

Like many MOAA members, I joined the military after college, and I come from a military family. My dad was a Navy sailor in World War II, and his brothers served in World War II in the Army. My older brother is retired from the Army. I served for 36 years in the U.S. Air Force, and we have a son currently serving in the Air Force.

As your MOAA board chair, I look forward to leading your Board of Directors in the next two years as we together continue to strengthen MOAA’s position. Like all organizations, we must continually evolve. We need to reach our younger members serving in the military, and we need to be an organization that they can relate to, and want to be a part of.

As we maintain the strong following with our current members and chapters, we need to reinvigorate the representation of the association to our active force as well as to our retired force. We need to help younger generations of officers understand the value of our advocacy and support for them, and their families, while they’re serving, and then the impact of lifelong service as a MOAA member.

[RELATED: Why Join MOAA?]

Every MOAA member should be a recruiter. Telling our story is important, both at the grassroots level and the national level, and I need your help as a powerful advocate for MOAA and our members and families.

MOAA has proven we have the capacity to adapt. We launched the Crisis Relief Program to assist unserved veterans. We added virtual chapters to connect members across the country who share common interests. We built a new Legislative Action Center to fully leverage technology to connect our members with their elected officials. These are three recent examples of how MOAA evolved to meet changing circumstances, and we’re planning many more.

As a large organization, MOAA must think of new ways to reach out to our more than 350,000 members and to recruit new members. Our collective challenge in the coming years is to see each day as an opportunity for growth in our organization and in our services to our members and families. I look forward to the journey with each of you.