CRB Newsletter - Vol. 6, No. 1

Gerry Celia,  Ph.D., HCLD(ABB)

From the Editor:

Here we go again, another edition of the CRB newsletter! I hope this finds you all well and ready for the coming year’s events. As always, we have the AAB annual meeting coming up May 12-14 at the Red Rocks Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is always a fun and educational event. Planning this event has been a committee headed by our former Commander in Chief, Carli Chapman. Carli has assembled a fantastic program focusing on building and improving our practices in the lab. It’s an area I think we are all eager to hear about, and one which we tend to struggle with daily.

Our current fearless leader, Stanley Harris touches on the other work being done by the CRB at the moment, with Shane Zozula addressing regulatory issues that affect us. From a committee standpoint this newsletter is perhaps a bit lighter than in the past, but that is not to say there aren’t big happenings afoot. Not everyone has been hibernating throughout the winter, but some things are not yet ready for primetime. Stan, for one, has been incredibly busy behind the scenes working to prepare for the 2017 meeting as well as pushing forth new ideas for a social media presence and updating of the CRB website.

I… well, I have just been “Stan”-ding in his shadow, to be perfectly honest. He’s a hard act to follow. The one question we repeatedly throw around is this: “what do our members want?” As incoming president this year, I believe that this is the hardest thing to get my finger on. This is your organization, and we really need to get you engaged. The AAB, and by extension the CRB should be more than a place to get your certificates and forget about, it should be an ongoing resource that addresses and supports us through all of the challenges we face as laboratorians. One of the things I have noticed in my past several years of involvement is that participation often feels like a job, and we all have enough jobs to worry about. At the same time, it’s pretty easy for me to jump on Facebook and start a controversial debate at 11pm and think nothing of it. How do we make this a more relaxed experience without losing track of who we are? Is it the formality with which we interact that keeps you at bay? Perhaps this is where a social media presence would be most effective. Whatever the answer, I think moving forward we need more engagement from our members, and I am tasking you all with thinking about this. My email is Gerry.celia@gmail.com – please send me your thoughts. I would find it to be “engaging”…

On a related topic, there is some big news on the horizon regarding the CRB portion of the yearly conference for 2017… stay tuned…

-Gerry

Gerry Celia, PhD, HCLD(ABB)
Editor