Thank you Sammye for your  very able leadership. Volunteers like you help make the world a better place with your time and efforts.

I also want to thank the entire ACS Safety Community for  your contributions and support of the ACS Safety programs. I am very honored and grateful to be part of these efforts.

I wish you all a very healthy,  joyful and safe New Year.

Marta Gmurczyk

 

 

 

[Actual Sender is owner-dchas-l**At_Symbol_Here**princeton.edu]

As 2019 winds down, I just wanted to take a minute and send out a note to CHAS members and express my gratitude to the community for their support this year.

The year has passed unbelievably fast and as I start to organize my thoughts for our annual report to the ACS, I am amazed at all that has come to fruition this year. The items below highlight just some of the member contributions and Division accomplishments this year:

• Our leadership successfully negotiated and transferred the Journal of Chemical Health & Safety to ACS Publications. The journal will now be published as ACS Chemical Health & Safety with CHAS members Mary Beth Mulcahy as Editor-in-Chief and Kali Miller as Development Editor. A special thanks to Harry Elston and the Editorial Board for the their hard work growing the journal over the last 20 years.
• Joe Pickel lead a successful update of our Division Bylaws (last updated in 2006). The revised bylaws were voted on by members and certified by Committee on Constitution and Bylaws in August.
• Leadership obtained $12,500 from the ACS to help support a Strategic Planning Retreat in 2020 ($7,500 from our IPG Grant and $5,000 from the Leadership Advisory Board for a facilitator).
• CHAS celebrated our 40^th Anniversary this year! To commemorate the occasion, Robin Izzo, Mary Beth Koza, and I designed candy bars. Robin took care of all the logistics and made sure the bars arrived un-melted in SF!  200 bars were purchased using monies from MPPG for following the SF theme in programing and were distributed (and very well received) in San Francisco.
• In SF, Frankie Wood-Black received the Helen M. Free Award for Public Outreach at the ChemLuminary ceremony.  Additionally, were recognized for outstanding divisional work with two ChemLuminary Awards.
  • Committee on Divisional Activities, Most Unique Project as Funded by a Division Innovative Project Grant, Ralph Stuart
  • Committee on International Activities, Global Engagement Award for Technical Divisions, Brandon Chance
• Robin Izzo conceived and produced the "Elements of Safety" periodic table using her resources at Princeton. Hundreds of posters celebrating the International Year of the Periodic Table and promoting RAMP and chemical safety were printed (at no cost to CHAS) and distributed at the National Meetings. 
• Continuing work begun by Neal Langerman and Harry Elston to get safety statements into ACS journals, Leah McEwen and myself successfully petitioned the Editors of the 2020 Style Guide (now ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication) to include a chapter on safety summaries for publications. The chapter, authored by Leah and myself, will launch in January 2020 online.
• Our Programing Chairs, Debbie Decker & Joe Pickel, put together two amazing National Meeting programs. We had 50+ abstracts in CHAS and full programing in the CANN Subdivision as well.  CHAS programing had co-sponsorships with CCS, CHED, CINF, PROF, and HIS. We were able to expand impact by working to include safety symposia in other divisional programming (ANAL, CHED, and I&EC) and Presidential symposia (PRES) with CHAS as a co-sponsor.
• Building on our efforts to integrate safety in regional meetings (Mark Lassiter, Regional Committee Chair) we had a presence at several Regional meetings (*supported in part by CHAS). Please let me know if I missed any Regional or Local Section activities so that they get included in our annual report!
  • Great Lakes Regional Meeting (GLRM)- Symposium "Laboratory Safety" (Ken Fivizzani, Presenting)
  • *Midwest Regional Meeting (MWRM) - Workshop "Safety Education Workshop" (Dave Finster) and Chemical Management Workshop" (Susan McCoy)
  • Central Regional Meeting (CERM) - Symposium "Safety in the Undergraduate Curriculum". This is listed in C&EN, but I am not sure if it was presented. If it did, someone please let me know.
  • *Southeastern Regional Meeting (SERMACS) - Symposium "Teaching, Creating & Sustaining a Safety Culture" (Mary Beth Koza, Organizing, Presiding, & Presenting)
• In 2018, Doug Walters mentored Kimi Brown to take over as the Awards Committee Chair. Kimi and the committee have done an outstanding job this year organizing the application process and updating the issuances for the Administrative Manual. Additionally, an new award has been created, "Laboratory Safety Institute Graduate Research Faculty Safety Award" (sponsored by LSI, Jim Kaufman)
• Members (numerous) worked on projects in collaboration with the CCS and CHED (Video Evaluation Rubric and 2019 Chemical Safety Exam).
• Dan Kuespert, Kirk Hunter, and myself have worked in collaboration with ACS Safety (Marta Gmurczyk) on the ACS Online Learning Safety Course slated to be completed in 2020. Additionally, Marta as established another small group to work on creating a set of short educational videos for undergraduates.

My apologies for the length of this communication, but I am very proud of our accomplishments this year. I am sure more will come to mind after I send this, but you get the idea!

I sincerely thank you for entrusting the Division helm to me for 2019 and I leave you in Robin's very capable hands!

Have a safe 2020.
Sammye

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