John Palatiello, Executive Director, SUEA

Post-87 – History of SUE Association

The SUE Association was the brainchild of John Berrettini and Mike Maguire, both of A/I/Data in Baltimore. They contemplated the idea in 2009 and had intermittent discussions with colleagues in other firms, but no action was taken until 2014 when  Berrettini and Justin Klein of the Klein Agency met with John Palatiello to discuss the process of creating an association.

Berrettini and Klein knew Palatiello from his role as Executive Director of the Maryland Society of Surveyors and were aware of his track record as Executive Director of MAPPS, the trade association of photogrammetry and geospatial firms, Administrator of the Council on Federal Procurement of Architectural and Engineering Services (COFPAES), and other association clients he served in the surveying, mapping, and A&E field.

Klein retained Palatiello to do a feasibility study and a dinner meeting of SUE firms in the Middle Atlantic region was convened in Bethesda, Maryland in March of 2015 in which different options for an association were presented and discussed. The representatives of the seven firms present (A/I/DATA, Accumark, JMT, KCI, Klein Agency, AMT, Insight, and AB Consultants) all agreed that next steps should be taken. That resulted in the compilation of names and contact information for principals in SUE firms and the dissemination of an online questionnaire.

Ultimately an “interest meeting” was held in Washington, DC in July of 2018. At that meeting, Palatiello and Berrettini presented a “straw man” of a national association, with a membership of private sector SUE service firms as Regular Members, with suppliers and related firms as Associate Members. Those present endorsed the proposal. As a result, bylaws were adopted and the first board of directors and officers were elected, with Berrettini selected as the first President and Palatiello was named Executive Director. Some of the members of the first board of directors are pictured.

The SUE Association was up and running. More about it and what it was doing will be discussed next week.