Inside HFM

Not the end, but the beginning

ASHE 2020 President Jeff Henne reflects on the organization's year of progress in the face of challenges
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Greetings, Health Facilities Management readers, and thank you for taking time to read my last column as your American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE) president. Can you believe it? This year, in retrospect, flew by.

This presidential term — this year — turned out much differently than I or any of us expected. There is no denying the burden we have carried this year and will continue to carry as we remain dedicated to protecting our patients and our communities. 

Vince Lombardi once said, “The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.” There is a lot we did not have this year. But when I look at everything our members accomplished despite that, I could not be prouder to have served as ASHE’s president during this challenging time. 

I want to thank each and every ASHE member, ASHE staffer, business partner and hospital employee who made enormous sacrifices to ensure the health and safety of our communities. I want to thank my fellow Board members for helping me navigate the year and push for continued progress with ASHE. I want to thank everyone’s families and friends for supporting them, which should never go unrecognized. 

I’m grateful that on top of all the great work ASHE did in response to the pandemic, we were able to move forward with many of my presidential goals, including streamlining committee processes, emphasizing advocacy and establishing our “Justice League” of safety and emergency managers to create ASHE tools to help our members get back to the basics of safety. 

During his 2019 ESPY acceptance speech, Drew Brees said, “I’ve learned so much throughout my career, and that’s a product of being around so many great people — great teammates, great coaches, great mentors,” and he went on to say that gratitude, humility and respect are the greatest qualities in a person. I’ve learned the same from you all. 

Thank you for trusting me to lead our organization this year. I look forward to continuing to serve as immediate past president and beyond as a devoted member of the ASHE community.