President’s Message 2023

January 26, 2023

Welcome to 2023 fellow Kansas Association of Public Purchasing Professionals.

What a couple of years this has been! We have all lived it so there’s no need to go over it.

However, new challenges and opportunities will continue to present themselves and hopefully we are all ready for what 2023 has in store for us.

We hope you have come out on the other side healthier, smarter, and more “antifragile.”

The author of the book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) presents antifragility as a concept in which systems or people may increase their capacity to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures.

He gives an example of antifragility from Greek mythology. The creature Hydra, a serpentine water monster whose “antifragile” feature is that for every head that was lopped off, it would regrow two heads in its place.

So, antifragility is a step above resilience. Instead of giving in to problems or challenges or just bouncing back, antifragile people thrive from the learning experience to become even better and stronger than they were before.

The KAPPP Board’s wish is that each one of us takes advantage of the resources offered by our association, whether it be educational, networking opportunities, or just plain camaraderie. Our mission is to help each one of you work to attain the quality of antifragility in our worlds of public procurement.

We invite you to participate as much as possible in our association events. Besides our general membership meetings we plan on having our Reverse Vendor Fair Trade Show in October (more details to follow).

Thank you for allowing us to serve you and we look forward to seeing you at future events.

Joe Thomas

KAPPP President