The President's Message

Season's greetings!

In the last few months I have had the pleasure of meeting many of you again. I have also been in touch via phone and/or e-mail with others, but not all. So I thought to take this opportunity to brief you on some of the section's activities and upcoming events. Here is the list:

1. Accelerator Safety Order Guidance
2. Midyear Meeting
3. Annual Meeting, Special Session
4. Nominations for the Health Physics Society (HPS) Awards
5. Morgan Lecture

1. From September 29 through 30, several of our section's officers and members (Gary Zeman, Bob Casey, Kamran Vaziri, Scott Walker, Don Cossairt, and I) were in a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) meeting at Fermi National Accelerator Lab (Fermilab). The meeting was called by DeVaughn Nelson, from the DOE Office of Science, who asked the accelerator community to work with DOE to update the implementation guide for DOE Order 420.2B, Safety of Accelerator Facilities. This effort started, and it continues to go well with the section's members making major contributions to the guide. When completed in the next couple of months, it is expected that the updated document will become a formal DOE guide in the DOE directives system.
2. Please let me know if you will be attending the 2005 HPS midyear topical meeting in New Orleans, LA. If so, we will arrange for a board meeting. Note that the 38th midyear meeting of the HPS on "Materials Control and Security: Risk Assessment, Handling, and Detection" will be held from February 13-16, 2005, at the New Orleans Marriott, New Orleans, LA. The preliminary program is now available.
3. Planning for the 2005 HPS annual meeting in Spokane, WA, has begun; the website for the meeting can be viewed for more details. The call for papers for the 2005 meeting was issued in the October 2004 issue of the Health Physics News and can also be viewed on-line. Please note that the abstract due date is January 28, 2005. Liz Brackett, HPS Program Committee Chair, has sent us an invitation to plan a special session for the meeting again. I will work with Lorraine Marceau-Day, the president-elect of the section, who will arrange the accelerator session at the HPS annual meeting (the call will be issued shortly; abstracts are to be submitted in December-January).
4. The HPS awards provide a great venue to recognize the technical contributions and services that Accelerator Section members are making to our field. Awards Committee Chair Ken Kase has called for nominations for the 2005 awards. The awards nomination process is listed on the web (editor's note: this website is restricted to HPS members).

   I believe that we have very good nominees for various HPS awards (Fellow Award, Volunteer Award). We should also consider either improving our case for the previous nominee for the Elda E. Anderson Award or seek another nominee for this award.

   Our immediate past president, Bob Casey, will serve as the chair of the Accelerator Section's Awards Committee and will coordinate the section's efforts in seeking and nominating qualified candidates. Please give this your full consideration and forward all suggestions to Bob and/or me. More on the awards will be listed in the newsletter.

5. As chair of the Presidents Emeritus Committee, Keith Dinger has recently solicited nominations for internationally known speakers to be invited to present papers at meetings of the society. In the last few years, the Accelerator Section has been very successful in this regard. Lorraine Marceau-Day, the section's president-elect, has already requested nominations for Morgan Lecturer (see her article under "Other News"). Please send your comments to Lorraine Marceau-Day.

I look forward to hearing from you; please continue to share with me your thoughts on topics and issues that we should be considering during the new year.