September 2014 Newsletter

Click here for the September 2014 Newsletter

Welcome and greetings to all of our NJAIHA members, I hope all of you had a great summer as we get ourselves ready for new series of meetings and events for the New Jersey AIHA section.   Now, as we move into the fall time of year and the start of a new season for our section, I’d like to update you on a number of important activities that are being planned or are in motion.

In August, the Executive Board met to review the 2013-2014 NJAIHA Section’s year, get caught up on current business, and to start planning our upcoming monthly meetings and PDCs for the NEIHC. As I enter my second year with this group and begin my term as president of the section I cannot say enough how appreciative and honored I am to be working with such a fine group of professionals many of which have served this section for a long period of committed service.  These individuals are 100%+  committed to continuing to make NJAIHA a vital aspect of the Industrial Hygiene and EHS professions here in New Jersey and their diverse backgrounds and experiences only adds to our strengths as a section.

I would like to congratulate and welcome Mark Ostapczuk of Hydro Environmental Technologies, Inc into his new position of President-Elect and also thank Mark for his continuing service as our Director of Publications.  I would also like to thank Patti Johnson for her services as Past- President and Craig Doolittle for his services as President during the past year. Craig will now be serving as past-president for the section. Patti and Craig  cannot be commended enough for all of their hard work in the past year for the NEIHC and their associated PDCs as putting on such an excellent program does take countless hours of planning, coordination, and efforts.  They also have both been excellent mentors/leaders for me since I joined the board.  We are also pleased to announce that Jack Zybura has agreed to continue on as our Director of Administration, even after his 3 three year term was up, as well as continuing to serve as Webmaster.  Jack is in the process of having our website redesigned and we thank Jack for his past and future efforts with our section.

And last but not least we want to extend a special thanks to Dr. Hank Shotwell for his efforts as the IH and Safety Summer Review Course Director.   Hank for that past few years  has conducted this extensive summer review program.  He has brought in many extremely knowledgeable instructors(including himself) and continued an education platform first started by Tom Peters for IH’s looking to prepare for the exam as well as CIH’s and safety professionals wanting a diversified review course.  His time, efforts, and care he puts into this program and the NJAIHA September 2014 Newsletter Page 2 value it provides are un-matched.  I do not know of any other section that has such a unique program as this, Thank you again Hank!

There are several activities and events worth highlighting at this time based on our planning meeting:
Monthly Meetings  We have set the dates for meetings this fall. For the September and October meetings, they will once again be the third Thursday of each month and at Snuffy’s. (See page 11 of this newsletter for more details so you can mark your calendars).  We have two excellent speakers from the pharmaceutical industry for our September meeting and a great microbiological presentation for October,  We are also always looking for interesting  presentation topics, so if you have some ideas or speakers you want to suggest, please pass that information along to Mark.

For our November 13th meeting we are planning a daytime event a NJAIHA Monitoring Equipment Workshop.  We are looking at having multiple vendors conduct hands-on with their testing equipment as well as provide short presentations to the group.  For vendors committed so far we have SKC, EMSL, and B&K lined up but we can use a few more equipment vendors so if any of you are interested or know of a firm to compliment the others please contact Mark or myself.   For the January – April meetings in 2015, we are open to all topics and even new locations, so if you have any suggestions for this as well, please reach out to Mark Ostapczuk (marko@hydroenvironmental.com) and let him know.

PDC and NEIHC  Please hold the dates of December 5th and 4th, 2014 on your calendars. These are the dates for the North East Regional Industrial Hygiene Conference (NEIHC) and Professional Development Courses (PDCs) respectively. This year we will be again be at the Westin Princeton at Forrestal Village for both events. The Metro NY AIHA section is in charge of the NEIHC this year (12/5) and our section will be in charge of the PDCs (12/4).  If you are interested in being an instructor/speaker for our PDC or can recommend someone please contact Craig Doolittle (Cdoolittle@trcsolutions.com).  If you are in interested in presenting at the NEIHC please contact the Metro NY AIHA section directly (PresidentMetroNY@gmail.com). We should have more official information forthcoming over the next month for the PDCs.

Finally as we look to continue and expand the number of attendees at our events and interest in the IH field and certification we look for any input from our membership in these areas.

I look forward to seeing all of you at our September 18th meeting at Snuffy’s!

Sincerely
Stephen Siegel
President NJAIHA