Georgia Local Section |
|
[American Industrial hygiene Association] |
[July, 2000] |
Summer Meeting |
We've begun a new year in our Georgia local section and it looks to be a grand one for the 2000/2001 year. We need to welcome our new board members: Michelle Pickard, Harold Hobbs and Peter Kowalski; as well as some returning members: Dave Beem ,Mark Demyanek, and Stan Salisbury. Everyone has a great attitude and are ready to start with some exciting programs for the coming year. Mark your calendars for the upcoming meetings so you won't miss any updates and interesting presentations that will be coming to you throughout the next 12 months.
Dave Beem has been gathering some interesting case studies for our half day meeting in July. GLS members have been involved in some very interesting projects. Join us at Georgia Pacific for breakfast and an insightful morning.
The Executive Board of the AIHA has approved our bylaw revisions to allow GLS members who are not National AIHA members to serve as a Director or Newsletter Editor. This should allow some additional flexibility in members running for office in the years to come. Plenty of time to consider running for office in 2001.
Hopefully everyone has started enjoying their summer and perhaps taking that long awaited vacation. Be careful in your adventures and we look forward to seeing everyone at our summer meeting refreshed and ready to start an interesting year in our local section. Be safe and see you in July.
GLS members elected to serve on the Executive Committee for 2000-2001 are:
President:
Brenda Southerland, CIH,CSP
Georgia Power
President Elect:
Dave Beem, CIH
Norfolk Southern Corporation
Secretary:
Michelle Pickard
Georgia Power
Treasurer:
Harold Hobbs, IHIT
Georgia Power
Directors (1st year):
Peter Kowalski,
CIH
ATSDR
Director (2nd year)
Mark Demyanek,
CIH,CSP
Board of Regents, Univ. System of Ga.
Newsletter Editor
Stan Salisbury, CIH
Past President
Eva Ewing, CIH
Compass Environmental
http://www.uga.edu/ehs/aiha
Updates to the GLS Web site News page include two more newsletter editions (March and May) to the AIHA Happenings from the Hill series, published by the AIHA Government Affairs Group. Also, Be sure to check out the photos from our Spring Vendors Day meeting.
In March, OSHA announced this years Site Specific Targeting plan. About 13,000 employers across the country were put on notice to fix safety and health hazards that are driving up injury and illness rates in their workplaces. As required by the Freedom of Information Act. OSHA has made this list available to the public from the OSHA Web site at: http://www.osha-slc.gov/html/hot_5.html
This page permits downloading a compressed zip file in dBase format that can be imported into other database or spreadsheet software applications. If you would like to download an Access 97 version of this file, sorted by State and City, you can download it directly from the GLS web site by right-clicking the link found on the News page.
Several new or updated items have been posted to our Other Links page. Under General IH you'll find the new link to the AIHA Internet mailing list (aiha-list@egroups.com). Clicking this link will take you directly to the list. You must register to access the list. They offer three subscription options: (1) individual emails, (2) the daily digest, or (3) no mail/web-only viewing. You must select option (1) to post or submit reply messages.
A new heading was added for Online Occupational Safety & Health Magazines. You'll find several new links worthy of your review time.
Useful information can be found in the OSHA Technical Manual (TED 1-0.15A). You'll find a direct this link to this manual under the Government Agencies heading.
In May the National Toxicology Program (NTP) released their 9th Edition of the NTP Report on Carcinogens (RoC). This report identifies substances and mixtures or exposure circumstances that are "known" or are "reasonably anticipated" to cause cancer, and to which a significant number of Americans are exposed. The Report is published every two years. Under the Toxic Substances heading, you'll find a link to the 9th RoC web page where you can view or search this latest report. To read summary of what's been added or revised, click the 9th RoC fact sheet link.
In the March GLS Newsletter, I suggested the MSDSOnline.com web site was a good source for finding electronic versions of MSDSs. MSDSOnline's basic service was free, but at that time, full access to their entire library of over 300,000 MSDSs required the user to register and pay $35 for their "MSDSPlus" service. MSDS Plus is now FREE. You can register for this service by clicking the MSDSOnline.com link under the Toxic Substances heading. Under this heading, you'll also find a close-to-home link for the 1999 Georgia Pest Control Handbook, by Paul Guillebeau, PhD, Dr. Guillebeau, an Entomologist with the University of Georgia, gave a presentation on integrated pest management at the GLS Winter meeting in January. A 2000 edition of the handbook will be released later this year.
A new link has been added under Freeware and Shareware Applications for Net.Medic. This is an excellent web browser companion utility I highly recommend. The full featured version is now available as a non-expiring free download. Net.Medic will work with your browser to monitor, isolate, diagnose, and correct Internet or intranet performance problems.
If you attended the 3M Scholarship Luncheon at the AIHCE in Orlando, you already know GLS Member Steve Tochilin, CIH, Delta Airlines, was the featured speaker. Congratulations Steve. Also, worth noting is the nice writeup in the May 15th issue of the AIHA Synergist, spotlighting our own Kevin Gara, CIH, Pritchard & Jerden,. Kevin was interviewed by the Synergist for their Lessons in Leadership feature.
AIHA Member Ed Bartosh handed AIHA President, Jim Thornton, a petition with 346 signatures, 320 validated with last years roster (200 required) to force a vote by the AIHA Membership to either approve or reject a decision by the AIHA Board of Directors to change the name of the annual conference to the Environmental, Health, and Safety Conference and Exhibition (EHSCE). Newly installed President, Steve Levine, promised a quick review of the signatures and quick action on the referendum when validation is complete. An AIHA staff person has indicated a ballot should be ready for mailing in about 4 to 5 weeks.
National AIHA members will be asked to either vote "in favor" of the Boards decision to update the name of the annual meeting to EHSCE, or to vote "against" the Board of Directors decision and keep the name as AIHCE.
The ABIH Directors voted to discontinue offering the Core Examination and Industrial Hygienist in Training (IHIT) program after this fall's examinations. Beginning in 2001, successful completion of the Core Examination will no longer be required to become a CIH. The Board came to this decision primarily because ABIH's examination consulting service has indicated that two, full-day examinations are not necessary to demonstrate IH competence at the CIH level. Full details on this change can be found on the ABIH web site at http://www.abIH.org/CORE-exam.htm. Please note, this URL is case-sensitive.
This new listserv is the latest NIOSH effort to increase dissemination of NIOSH information. Through their listserv, NIOSH will provide monthly notices of new NIOSH publications and announcements including conferences, funding opportunities, and information on the National Occupational Research Agenda. You may subscribe to the NIOSH listserv at:
http://www.cdc.gov/subscribe.html.
The newly elected Georgia local section Executive Committee met on Friday, June 2nd. members Members present were: Brenda Southerland, Dave Beem, Harold Hobbs, Michelle Pickard, Mark Demyanek, Stan Salisbury, and Peter Kowalski. Discussion items included the Georgia local section Operations Manual, Georgia bylaw revisions, a financial update from Dave Beem, local section meeting plans, and plans for a membership drive (see coupon in newsletter). Each committee member will be working on revising applicable sections of the local section Operations Manual. Brenda reported that National AIHA has approved our proposed bylaw changes. Dave reported our total fiscal 1999 expenses as $7,453.51 and our current balance as $11,557.49. Future local section meeting dates were scheduled as follows:
Executive Committee meeting dates were scheduled for September 15, December 8, and March 9.
The American Board of Industrial hygiene has awarded certification maintenance (CM) points for the following Georgia AIHA Local Section meetings:
Activity: Summer Meeting
Date: 8/3/99
CM Points Awarded: 0.5 CM point
CM # 7235
Activity: Fall Meeting
Date: 8/3/99
CM Points Awarded: 1 CM point
CM # 2888
Activity: Winter Meeting
Date: 1/24/00
CM Points Awarded: 1 CM point
CM # 1458