Message from the President - Janurary 2012
Greetings, WAFDO Friends and Family!
As you would expect, your WAFDO Board has been meeting via phone conferences this winter and is currently making progress on several important tasks and traditions known to our members. Two of those tasks include the 2012 Conference Planning and Annual Scholarship Committees we are all proud of. I am excited to share what the Association has been up to and offer you opportunities to become involved with WAFDO in the future.
First, I would like to welcome back David O’Guinn, our WAFDO Webmaster. David has been missed tremendously in recent months and we are blessed to have his expertise back at work for the web page updates. David makes sure you are kept up to date on events in the WAFDO region. We all use the web these days as the key way we deliver and search for information. The Association felt a bit lost without the Webmaster making the connection for all of us. We hope to facilitate additional information sharing into the future. If you missed seeing updates from the 2011 Educational Conference take a look at the web page now, David has been busy behind the scene this month.
I must agree with our Past President Ms. Stryker statement that, “for many of us, the best part of WAFDO is being able to build relationship and share information and news from our region.” The WAFDO board continues to discuss and exchange current information regarding topics of interest for our common regional and regulatory areas. We welcome and encourage you to contact our Webmaster so we can share important information, items of interests, or other concerns or events with our WAFDO community. We also enter submitters into a drawing for a gift certificate for an added bonus as contributors.
Susan Parachini, our Treasurer, has done an exceptional job of keeping up with the WAFDO finances, coordinating membership, and keeping us generally on track. Susan carries the checkbook and will be busy writing checks for scholarships to a deserving student or two in the environmental health, food, drug, or device field. Thank you Susan. Bensen Yee continues to act as Secretary and does a tremendous job of keeping us on track with our meeting minutes and progress updates.
Kim Stryker and her committee have been working hard at planning next year’s educational conference. WAFDO is excited to collaborate with the FDA Pacific Region Retail Food Program Managers to overlap our conferences this year. We hope to offer everyone a chance to expand your knowledge and networking opportunities! We will have a fabulous agenda in store for you that takes many aspects of food safety, drugs and devices into account. The conference will be scheduled for August or September in California. We will plan some great activities like last year, to get to know one another and make significant connections with others in your field. Please join us for our traditional silent auction to raise money for the J. Jos Campioni scholarship fund. We welcome all and encourage you to bring an item or two for the silent auction and recommend that you bid early and often at the conference!
I wish you and your families the best and look forward to meeting you at our 2012 annual educational conference!
Dawn J. Smith
WAFDO President |
