September 2015 President’s Message

It is with great anticipation that I welcome you to another year as a member of one of the largest local sections of AIHA! We have a promising agenda of informative meetings planned for the 2015-2016 year. In addition, I believe you will see some exciting initiatives from our Executive Board as we also welcome our new President-Elect, Mr. Bernie Fontaine, Jr. of the Windsor Consulting Group, Inc.

2014-2015 was another great year in many ways and I want to again thank our outgoing President Stephen Siegel, for doing a fine job and maintaining the legacy of all of our past Presidents. In addition, I also want to thank Barbara Woodhull, Treasurer for keeping us solvent, Grey Coppi, Membership, for managing one of the largest crops of scholarship winners ever (see photos from the June meeting starting on page 11), Jack Zybura, Webmaster and Director of Administration, for developing and getting our new website on line, Dr. Hank Shotwell, Secretary, for his meticulous note taking and helping us stay on track with our goals and objectives, and Tim Rice, Historian, (and the glue that binds this group together since becoming Historian in February of 2003, he has missed only one regular monthly meeting). Thanks again all for your continuing dedicated and voluntary service to NJAIHA!!

It is also my pleasure to announce that we had one of the largest groups in recent memory attend our 2015 IH Summer Refresher course. Thank you Dr. Hank Shotwell for your work in making that happen and helping the next batch of CIH’s obtaining their ABIH certification.

In August, the NJAIHA Executive Board held its annual planning meeting for the upcoming year. Arrangements for our meeting speakers and our annual PDC’s are well under way to ensure another round of interesting and informative programs that you will have an opportunity to participate.

One of our collective goals as an organization should be to increase our membership. The Executive Board is looking at every way possible way to accomplish that and also to enhance our organization’s role in keeping Industrial Hygiene a vital part in protecting the health of workers everywhere. We hope we are not alone in believing the NJAIHA can and should be a great tool to be used to help both experienced IH professionals and those new to the field. To that end, I challenge every one of you to spread the word and bring in new members to NJAIHA. Any and all suggestions are welcome as we make that our top priority for the coming year.

I look forward to seeing all of you at our September 17th meeting at Snuffy’s!

Best Regards,
Mark Ostapczuk
President NJAIHA