March 2015 Newsletter

Click here for the March 2015 Newsletter

It feels so great to write this as we finally appear to be putting winter with its snow, ice, and aggravation behind us.

We had an excellent February NJ-AIHA Meeting. First, we had Jack Springston, a Senior Project Manager for TRC Environmental, educate us on the issues surrounding Electronic Cigarettes in the Indoor Environment. Their great increase in global usage (especially younger people) along with the poor awareness of their associated hazards was both a fascinating and illuminating presentation. It will be interesting to see how many years it takes until they fall under appropriate regulation and hazard warnings. Our second speakers were David A. Haworth and Paul Jenkins, both attorneys-at-law from Ballard Spahr LLP. They presented on The Expert Witness: The Attorney’s Perspective. For many of us including myself who occasionally but not regularly appear in a courtroom as a CIH it was great to see the do’s and do not’s of being an expert witness for our profession with actual recordings.

We are also very excited for the triple group joint meeting this week with the members of NJ ASSE and MABSA. We have two excellent speakers and topics for this meeting. We have an Ebola Update from Dr. Edward Lifshitz (NJDOH) an Investigation of a Potentially Fatal Fork Lift Incident from Joseph Piccolo, CHMM (Roche Molecular Diagnostics).

Finally just a reminder to any of you who are or who know of any students attending college that are majoring in the fields of industrial hygiene or environmental health and safety for the 2015-2016 school year, there are three scholarships of up to $1000 that are available for NJ AIHA award to selected candidates. The deadline for the application is April 1, 2015. Please direct any student applicants to http://www.njaiha.org/scholarships/2015-scholarships for more details and requirements and they can apply on-line at that time.

We look forward to seeing all of you at our March meeting this week and don’t forget our April meeting is our Past-Presidents night where we recognize and honor those individuals who have previously served as NJAIHA Section President.

Sincerely,
Stephen Siegel, CIH MBA
President NJ AIHA