I had been working recently on drafting the announcement for the first annual H. Wade Patterson Memorial Award (see the announcement later in this newsletter). When I sent the initial draft out for review by the Accelerator Section Board of Directors, Wes Dunn raised an excellent point about when the section actually started. I had mentioned that Wade was instrumental in founding our section (serving as the first president) in the early 1990s. Wes' point was that he felt it would be good to list the exact year.
I took this as a challenge to not rely on my memory and to do some research. I reviewed some papers from the early days of the section, when I was working for Geoffrey Stapleton (in 1989-90) and the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF, now known as Jefferson Lab) was still a design and construction project.
My digging revealed that on July 25, 1990, at the Health Physics Society (HPS) annual meeting in Anaheim, California, there was an organizational steering committee meeting to discuss a proposed Accelerator Section. Wade chaired the meeting, and he described the petition and organizational process necessary for the HPS Board of Directors to approve of a new section. The forty meeting attendees were unanimous in their decision to move the petition forward.
A steering committee was appointed composed of Ralph Thomas (chair), J. W. Barnard, Jerry Fallon, Nisy Ipe, Jerry Miller, Paul Nesson, Geoffrey Stapleton, L. W. Seagondollar, and Frank Masse. Frank Masse (at the time Frank was the HPS president-elect) also helped the steering committee with his insights and knowledge of the actual mechanics of forming a new HPS section. We received considerable assistance from the HPS Environmental Section with advice and copies of their section's documents.
The Accelerator Section charter was accepted by the HPS board on January 20, 1991, at the HPS midyear meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina. By the time of the 1991 HPS annual meeting in Washington, D.C., our section was completely active, having submitted the required HPS member petition for a new section and obtained final board approval.
Thanks for your patience and indulgence with my review of our section's history. I still do not know if I actually answered Wes' question. However, I used the 1991 date in the announcement for the HPS newsletter, Health Physics News.
I provided the Patterson Award announcement to the HPS student branch faculty advisors in advance of the information being published in Health Physics News. Please encourage any students (graduate or undergraduate) with whom you have contact to consider entering.
Here is the Accelerator Section 2003 midyear report, which I submitted to the HPS on January 23, 2003.
1. Recommendations for Action: None
2. Background Information: None
3. Other Accelerator Section Information The Accelerator Section is finalizing its planning for an annual section award in memory of the late H. Wade Patterson, the first Accelerator Section president. An annual $250 award would be given to the best student presentation (poster or oral) at the HPS annual meeting. We plan to publicize the award with several announcements in upcoming monthly HPS newsletters.
The Accelerator Section's quarterly newsletter continues to be well supported by both U.S. and international correspondents submitting a wide range of accelerator-related news items and scientific information. The efforts of Linnea Wahl of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the section's newsletter editor, are instrumental in producing this well-received publication.
The Accelerator Section Board recently requested that the Presidents Emeritus Committee select Dr. Ralph H. Thomas as a G. William Morgan lecturer for the accelerator special session at the 2003 HPS annual meeting.