December 2016 President’s Message

Happy holidays to all. The November dinner meeting was joint meeting with our colleagues from the Mid-Atlantic Biological Safety Association (MABSA) and the presentations were enjoyed by more than 50 attendees. The before-dinner meeting speakers, Aparupa Sengupta, Ph.D. (Biosafety Officer) and Thomas Block, MPH CIH (Health and Safety Specialist) from Rutgers University spoke about the many challenges faced and conquered while implementing the plant biosafety management system in the agricultural research farms and addressing and managing the occupational health issues faced by agricultural workers. The after-dinner meeting speaker, Rob Brauch from Lantos Technologies spoke about the ongoing changes in the field of hearing conservation along with the rapid rate development of new technological developments in collaboration with using the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, and the capacity to do more – simpler, faster, and with smarter applications.

We recently concluded two other planned events – four Professional Development Courses (PDCs) were held at the PSE&G facility in South Plainfield, NJ and the 70th annual Northeast Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition (NEIHce) was held at the Westin Forrestal Village in Princeton, NJ. Both events required carefully planning, coordination, and marketing. I want to thank everyone for coming to these venues but more importantly, I want to personally thank all of the members of NJAIHA Planning Committee for their dedication and support for both successful outcomes. Both Barbara Woodhull (Chair, NEIHce Committee) and Mark Ostapczuk (Chair, PDC Committee) provided inspiration. guidance and leadership for these events. This special December issue of the newsletter provides our members with a recap of the outstanding speakers and their engaging presentations.

So far, this have been such a wonderful and extraordinary year. Now that these events are concluded, NJAIHA looks forward to the upcoming months by continuing our journey set forth in the 2016-2017 Action Plan. Our next mission is to examine ways to collaborate with stakeholders to promote NJAIHA across boundaries for greater recognition and understanding for the work that we do to protect worker health. We look for the NJAIHA membership to help support this initiative by volunteering your time, providing suggestions and/or comments, and collaborating with our trusted Executive Committee.

Our profession is expanding in so many ways that were unimaginable only a few years ago. Industrial hygienists now have a broader application of human talent to work with other professional disciplines in the construct of important management decisions that affect workers’ lives, their families, community and the environment. The NIOSH Total Worker Health program is only one step toward this goal. We are asking the NJAIHA membership to volunteer their time to help our leadership construct a robust plan and reach out to the business community to discuss our mission and vision. Our objective is to provide greater awareness of what we do and the support that can be given toward research and development to the strategic management planning goals. We can affect change by understanding our role and talking about impact of decisions will have on the economy, society, and governance. Our human talent within NJAIHA is boundless and it is important that we talk about what we can do to make NJ a better place to live. Hence, I am asking anyone who wishes to venture down this trail, contact Craig Doolittle to work on this committee. This is a multi-year engagement and your full support is needed for a successful outcome.

NJAIHA needs to do more to seek more Outreach Coordinators from the NJAIHA membership to promote industrial hygiene and/or occupational health in the school districts as a career choice and to teach school administrators and faculty about how they can protect students entering the workforce for the first time. Tools on the NJAIHA website that can be downloaded and used in a 45-minute stand down. NJAIHA is focused on reaching out to high school students that maybe working part-time jobs or seeking summer employment. Other students may be entering the workforce to learn a trade and need to understand the hazards on their job. The NJ Youth@Work Talking Safety is a unique program that has been vetted to meet NJ child labor law requirements. Recently NJAIHA has included a similar training and education program for intellectually and developmentally disabled students. If you want to become involved and present to school districts, teachers’ unions, and teacher or school administrator associations; please contact Candice Kowalewski.

We are continuing to work hard to find outstanding speakers and emerging topics of interest for the monthly dinner meetings! If you have an idea for either a speaker or topic, contact Craig Doolittle. As a side bar, NJAIHA offers a “Loyalty Rewards Program” for members who attend any five (5) dinner meetings. In addition, if you can sign-up five (5) new or former members in our “Member Get-a-Member” program, NJAIHA will offer you a free dinner. So far, we have increased our membership with this incentive. So, let’s keep the process going strong. Our organizational strength comes from our membership. We must continue the process of engaging and empowering more people to join.

As a reminder, we need your continued financial support for the student scholarships. We need to encourage students to consider this profession as a career choice or enhance their knowledge of the principles and practice of industrial hygiene. We are selling the piqué polo shirts with the NJAIHA logo to raise revenue to support these annual student scholarships. We are holding our pricing so that more members of NJAIHA can afford purchasing these shirts These shirts can be proudly worn to any NJAIHA venue and they make a great holiday gift. If you would like to make a purchase, contact Craig Doolittle or visit the NJAIHA website for details. Limited quantities/sizes will be available for purchase at the upcoming monthly dinner meetings.

Over the past several months, you may have noticed more communication by email and our monthly newsletter contains much more information than previous years. Our goal is to keep the membership informed of emerging events and to become more proactive to disseminate timely information. We also want to engage the membership in the mission and vision of NJAIHA. If you would like to share any information with the NJAIHA membership such as job postings, new equipment and technology, informational resources, business case study, and/or professional events, contact Mark Ostapczuk.

In closing, we have selected a stellar lineup of speakers for 19 Jan 2017 monthly dinner meeting. I hope to see you and a friend at Snuffy’s! Look for the upcoming email announcement and/or posting on Linkedin and Facebook.

Best regards,
Bernard L. Fontaine, Jr., CIH, CSP, FAIHA
President NJAIHA