Happy Fall from the New Jersey Local Section of the AIHA (NJAIHA)!

NJAIHA is hosting virtual Professional Development Courses (PDCs) on Thursday December 1, 2022, featuring Tom Burgess, CIH, CSP, MS, of T&M Associates, speaking on IH Aspects of Confined Space Entry, and Nancy Orr, CIH, CSP, FAIHA, speaking on Building an Ethical Foundation for Occupational Safety and Health Programs, a PDC that fulfills the BGC/ABIH ethics requirement for CIH. The registration for these PDCs can be found here: http://www.njaiha.org/event/2022-njaiha-professional-development-courses/

In addition, this year NJAIHA is hosting the in person Northeast Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition (NEIHce) on Friday December 2, 2022, at the Princeton Marriott at Forrestal, 100 College Road East, Princeton, NJ. This is the first in person NEIHce since 2019. We have been working hard on organizing this year’s Conference, and are thrilled to host an event featuring NIOSH, regulatory, academic, and private sector OEHS speakers on topics of National AIHA, Washington Policy Updates, a panel discussion of speakers on Heat Stress in the Workplace, the Future of Sensor Technologies, Mental Health in the Workplace, and IH in Construction. Early registration closes 11/23/22. So, please see the following link to register and for more details: https://njaiha.regfox.com/2022-northeast-industrial-hygiene-conference-and-exposition

We have also returned to our monthly tradition of in person technical dinner meetings. We had in person meetings with dynamic speakers September through November, on topics such as the Challenges and Excitement of Industrial Hygiene Consulting, Infectious Diseases in Wastewater Treatment Plant employee exposures, the Psychology of Bad Excuses in Safety and Health, and a statistical tool called Macro to assess Covid-19 risk of illness or death in the workplace when compared to community transmission levels.

We will have virtual meetings during the workday on January 19, 2023 at 11:00 AM featuring Dr. Mike Jayjock speaking on the Human Health Risk Assessment to Chemicals, and on another workday, February 16, 2023 at 11:00 AM where we will receive an OSHA Update from Isabel DeOliviera, Compliance Assistance Specialist out of Region 3 Federal OSHA.

Our dinner meetings will continue in March 2023 with a tri-organization meeting with the Mid-Atlantic Biological Safety Association (MABSA), the New Jersey Chapter of the American Society of Safety Professionals (NJASSP) and NJAIHA on March 16, 2023. Our dinner meetings will continue in April 2023 (Past Presidents’ Night), and June 2023, our year-end awards and student scholarships dinner meeting. The announcements and registration for all these events will be posted on our website; http://www.njaiha.org/events/

Since last year, although we were coming off a winter pandemic surge, four amazing students won NJAIHA scholarships ranging from $500 to $1500. Hopefully you saw the article on our 2022 scholarship winners in the September issue of the Examiner. On a related note, our esteemed Historian Tim Rice recently compiled from readily available documents all of the scholarships NJAIHA has awarded since 1990 to students pursuing degrees and careers in OEHS. Over the last 32 years, NJAIHA has granted at least 91 scholarship recipients a total of $91,800! Some more digging through the historical records predating 1990 will be sure to show those totals are even higher. It’s not too soon to refer any students you may have in your courses, companies, or network of families, colleagues, and friends, who may be pursuing an industrial hygiene related field. The deadline to apply for a scholarship is May 15, 2023, but we love early applications, so
please click on the following NJAIHA scholarship application page to apply: http://www.njaiha.org/students/scholarships/

Finally, thanks to our Outreach Coordinator Dan Preisler who attended the NJ School Counselor Association’s Fall Conference in early October to promote IH careers to middle school and high school students (see related photo in this issue). There was a good turnout this year with much interest from school counselors and may lead to promoting IH in additional upcoming career fairs.

Have a great Thanksgiving Holiday with your family and friends and we look forward to seeing you at our upcoming meetings and conferences.

Marc Vargas, CIH, MPH
President, NJAIHA
m.vargas.njaiha@gmail.com