Congratulations to December's Board Member of the Month Gary Patterson. Gary is Vice-Chairman of the FTL Board of Directors and Chairman of the Buildings & Grounds Committee.

This year was a busy one for the Board due to the lake drawdown. The Building & Grounds Committee received over 40 submissions of construction plans requiring review. Gary met with many of our members to discuss these plans, making suggestions and assuring compliance with FTL building rules. Some of these conversations were hard and involved multiple site visits to arrive at an approvable project. Gary was always willing to take that phone call and invested a LARGE amount of his personal time to get the job done.  


In addition to these lake drawdown related projects, you may have also noticed that the Board is trying to catch up on repairs to the lake's weathering infrastructure. This required doing some fact-finding to determine what issues there were to address. Gary spearheaded an asset review this spring to create a list of all FTL structures in need of repair. As a result of his efforts, we have been able to move forward on projects such as upgrading the tennis courts, expanding the marina docks, and refreshing the lake boathouse. There are more upgrades still to come, all with Gary's help.

While much of Gary's work has taken place in more visible ways around the Lake, a little known tidbit of his leadership this year has been his role in updating FTL's bylaws and regulations. Gary took on the long-discussed issue of absentee voting at our annual meeting and has invested a large amount of his personal time to update and improve our regulations.

Lastly, Gary always finds a way to contribute in Board meetings either by making motions to move projects or ideas forward and by helping us stay focused and make the decisions we are tasked with.

It's hard to capture in words what Gary brings to the table, but rest assured FTL is a better place due to his contributions.