The 2010-2011 Chesapeake Area Biological Safety Association is underway with new and exciting opportunities for our members! I would like to welcome Dr. Sherry Bohn as our newly elected councilor and congratulate Hallie Heaney on both a very successful 2010 Spring Scientific Symposium and her new position as President-Elect. I would also like to thank Roxy Grossnickle for his service and leadership as 2009-2010 President. The 2010 Spring Scientific Symposium that took place at the Holiday Inn in College Park, Maryland was very successful this year. Of particular note, Bruce Donato gave an overview of ChABSA’s new website and member services pages, and Ben Fontes, the current President of The American Biological Safety Association traveled all the way from Yale University to give his presentation on the ongoing educational and organizational efforts of ABSA both nationally and internationally. As our keynote speaker, Dr. Daniel Perez presented new data on his influenza research at the University of Maryland at College Park. It truly is a dynamic and exciting time to be in the field of biological safety! On May 11th, 2010 a meeting of the Presidents and President’s Elect of the Washington DC local Safety and Health Associations met to discuss how to better communicate with each other and share each other’s correspondence, events, job postings, and annual conferences. Some of the participants were: ChABSA, The Health Physics Society, The American Society of Safety Engineers, The American Industrial Hygiene Association, The Occupational Health Nurses Association, The Alliance of Hazardous Materials Professionals, The Washington Metro Area Construction Safety Association, and the Voluntary Protection Program Participants Association. This meeting was significant in that it actually happened (it has been planned for a great many years), and that everyone agreed that better integration and sharing of information about Construction, Industrial, Chemical, Radiological and Biological Safety would only benefit our memberships. For the coming year, my vision is to continue to focus on the promotion of biosafety throughout the Midatlantic region, and build on the long legacy at ChABSA of sharing sound scientific and technical expertise with our members. However, I would also like to integrate speakers and topics from these partner safety associations into one or two of our dinner meetings; the objective would be to chose topics that engage our current membership and hopefully invite new members into CHABSA. Again on behalf of CHABSA, I would like to thank you for your continued participation, and I look forward to seeing you all for our dinner meetings in the coming year.

Paul Landon CIH, RBP ChABSA President