Georgia Local Section |
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| [American Industrial hygiene Association] | [July 2001] |
The annual conference is over and a new year for the local section has begun. First on the agenda is to introduce our new board: they are Dave Beem, President; Kevin Gara, President-elect; Leah Oglesby, Secretary; Ed Grunwald, Treasurer, Peter Kowalski, 2nd Year Director; Grover Higgins, 1st Year Director; Stan Salisbury, Newsletter Editor and Webmaster and Brenda Southerland, Past President. I also want to thank those who served last year and are stepping off the board: Michelle Pickard, Secretary, Harold Hobbs, Treasurer, Mark Demyanek, Director and Eva Ewing, Past President. Their knowledge and leadership will be greatly missed but they will be near if advice is needed. Next time you see one of them, tell them thank you for a job well done.
If you went to the national conference then you may have dried out by now (both literally and figuratively). The New Orleans section did a great job. Not only was the program good but you got your exercise walking the many miles through the convention center. If you are wondering about next year's conference start making plans for San Diego, June 1-6, 2002. But, if San Diego is too far, too expensive or just not your cup of tea, remember this. Your local section provides 3½ days per year of excellent technical programs where you can gain the personal insight of the speaker at each meeting and acquire certification maintenance points.
And speaking of meetings, we have another great one coming up on Friday, July 20th. Four hours of technical training on monitoring of aerosols, isocyanates and metal working fluids, all presented by Dr. Martin Harper, CIH, Assistant Professor of Industrial Hygiene at the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB). Take note, we are meeting on a Friday instead of a Monday (couldn't get the space on a Monday). We are meeting at a new location (near Perimeter Mall) and the meeting begins at 10:00 a.m. and ends at 3:00 p.m. in order to avoid that Perimeter traffic.
I hope that all of you benefit from your membership in our local section. If you have any ideas for speakers or topics please use the web site form, drop us an email, call us, write us, send smoke signals, or anything but let us know. Your ideas are important. The local board is here to serve you. Please let us know how we can do a better job.
If you didn't attend the ASSE/AIHA Professional Development Conference then you missed out on some great speakers and technical information. AIHA President Steven Levine captivated the lunch crowd by talking about the human side of injuries and illnesses and how each one of us got into this profession to help others. He then, along with AIHA Director of Government Affairs, Aaron Trippler, ex-acting OSHA Director Pat Tyson, and ASSE Area Director Matthew Parker, conducted a roundtable and fielded questions ranging from ergonomics to who may be the new head of OSHA. The depth of the answers and knowledge given was beyond our highest expectations. And speaking of the new OSHA Director, we were the first to be given the announcement that past AIHA president John Henshaw would be nominated by President Bush for the Assistant Secretary's position. The White House called Aaron Trippler with the news as he was being pickup at Hartsfield. In addition to the AIHA big guns, we had IH technical presentations on indoor air pollution, insurance cost and how you can use them to justify better health and safety programs, a new laboratory technique for evaluating particulate exposure, silica exposure in the construction industry, safety and health issues at a remediation site and industrial hygiene for the safety professional. Many of the speakers were members of our own local section. Furthermore there were lots of safety presentations and a bundle of door prizes.
Our own GLS web site was voted runner-up in the Local Section Council web site contest at the AIHCE in New Orleans for sections with 100 to 200 members. Lets all thank Stan for the terrific job he's done in designing and updating the site. You can find meeting announcements, membership information along with email addresses for other members, change of address forms, and links to other industrial hygiene related web sites. If you haven't visited our site recently check it out at http://www.georgiaaiha.org.
Have you ever taken noticed of all the industrial hygiene talent in our local section? Atlanta is the headquarters for Georgia Power, Georgia Pacific, Delta Airlines, just to name a few along with a major presence of many nationally known companies that have GLS Local Section industrial hygienists. In addition, CDC is headquartered here along with many of the NIOSH staff. We have the OSHA Region IV offices and three university industrial hygiene/public health programs within driving distance. Industrial hygienists serving these companies and institutions have contributed their knowledge on many different subjects at our meetings. I bet all of you have knowledge you can share with our local section. If you or someone you know has an industrial hygiene related topic they would like to present at a future meeting, please visit our web site and submit the suggested topics form (http://www.georgiaaiha.org/topics.html) linked on the site's Mission page. We want to hear what you have to say.
The American Board of Industrial hygiene has awarded certification maintenance (CM) points for the following Georgia AIHA Local Section meetings:
Activity: Winter Meeting 2001
Date: 1/2/2001
CM Points Awarded:
1 CM point
CM # 14792
Activity: ASSE/AIHA PDC
Date: 4/23-24/2001
CM Points Awarded: 1
CM point
CM # 15619
To find approval numbers for other past meetings, please visit the GLS Web site's Calendar page at http://www.georgiaaiha.org/calendar.html.
The Georgia Local Section Executive Committee met on June 15th to transition the newly elected members into office. Attending members included Dave Beem, Brenda Southerland, Stan Salisbury, Ed Grunwald, Kevin Gara, Grover Higgins, Michele Pickard, Leah Oglesby, Peter Kowalski, and Mark Demyanek.
The board was notified that our web site won second place at the AIHCE. Our hats are off to Stan for the hard work he does making our site a winner! Other discussion items included plans for the upcoming meeting at Mirant, methods to attract new members, development of a "value-added" statement to support the local section, and plans for the upcoming fall meeting. The committee will engage in a membership drive through advertising at local universities, continuing the guest coupons in the newsletter, and contacting Georgia AIHA national members that are not local section members. Ideas for expanding our membership will also be solicited from current local section members. A "value-added" statement is being developed to remind all of us the benefits of being a local section member. We hope that this "what's in it for me?" statement helps us retain and build our membership.
The fall meeting is slated for October 22nd. Proposed agenda items include: history of our Local Section, occupational asthma, ergonomics, indoor air quality and laboratory ventilation. The next board meetings are scheduled during the July 20th meeting at Mirant and on September 7th. at the Georgia Power building.
In our last issue I reported that the Army Industrial Hygiene Web site was being redesigned. Their site is now online and linked from our Other Links page. Check out their Regulatory Summary and Industrial Hygiene Newsletter pages.
When you visit our Membership page you'll find the names and e-mail addresses of the new GLS Executive Committee. Notice that these email addresses are specific to the GLS. If you need to e-mail us and you don't remember our address or don't want to look it up, just key in our generic address (e.g. president@georgiaaiha.org) and your message will automatically forward to the appropriate Committee member.
Other new links on the site include: