Alas, this column is to announce that our marvelous Director of Institutional Memberships & Meetings, Maureen Foerster, has decided after 12 years with TAA that this is the right time for her to retire and start working on all those home projects, travel adventures, and family gatherings she has been saving up for retirement.

Those of you who have worked with Maureen know that her contributions to TAA are legion and will not readily be replaced (though we will, of course, make every effort to fill the gap!). If you haven’t had the pleasure of working with Maureen, you will still likely notice her absence, since her responsibilities for the Annual Conference, The Academic Author newsletter, Institutional Memberships, and Workshops touch every member of our organization.

The headline is perhaps more aspirational than literal…How can I adequately say ‘farewell’ and ‘thank you’? Since we are, after all, an organization of authors, I asked current members of the TAA Council, the Conference Committee, and staff – who work most closely with Maureen – to provide me their best words to describe her traits as a colleague. The responses were swift and heartfelt, so I’ll let these excellent words convey what Maureen means to TAA. Words in boldfaced larger type appeared multiple times!