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<< back to the 2000 archive listing << Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation Commentary From The Executive Director I hope you have had the opportunity to read Reflections from the Past You've heard the saying, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." This certainly runs true in the International Association for Food Protection! By now, I hope you have had the opportunity to read many of the columns we have run in Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation under the title, "Reflections from the Past." In this series, we are reprinting presidential addresses given at our Annual Meetings over the years. Today, I want to review items covered in earlier reports to show how they affected where we are today and how they relate to current issues. Back in 1944, C.A. Abele noted that restaurant sanitarians are organizing at the state levels and wish to form affiliations with the International. "If this segment becomes larger, the Journal of Milk Technology and the Association may need to consider name changes." At the time, the Association's name was International Association of Milk Sanitarians. By 1947, the name changed to the International Association of Milk and Food Sanitarians and in 1952, the journal name changed to the Journal of Milk and Food Technology. It was July of 1952 when the Association first established an office in Indiana. Red Thomasson was hired as the Executive Secretary and only employee. Today, we are located in Des Moines, Iowa with ten full-time and two part-time staff. Red pointed out in his 1952 report that the Journal of Milk and Food Technology was to begin monthly publication in January of 1953. Harold Adams expounded upon the virtues of professional advancement through Member's actions. In 1956, he observed that the pool of potential Members was vastly larger than the current Member population. He called upon each Member to recruit another Member to help the Association grow. I believe that Jack Guzewich, our current President just repeated this call in January. This is one area where you can be a true leader by encouraging your colleagues to become active in the Association. In his 1961 Presidential Address, John Scheuring suggested a name change for the Association to include "general" sanitarians. By 1966, environmental was added to our lengthening name. The Association name became the International Association of Milk, Food and Environmental Sanitarians and remained so through December of 1999. Additionally, in 1961 an issue was raised about Members only being able to cast votes if they attended the Annual Meeting. It was decided a better process would be to mail ballots to Members and ask them to return their vote via mail to the Association office. Today, we continue to use this method with our eyes on the future. Soon we may be able to accommodate electronic balloting via the Internet. Earl Wright served as President and Executive Director in 1974. He encouraged colleagues to join the Association and noted an increased activity in Affiliate formation. Earl pointed out a noticeable change in topics of submitted articles for the Journal of Milk and Food Technology. He noted in his report that more food-related articles than milk-related articles were being printed and noted an increase of Members coming from the food industries. At the 1976 Annual Meeting, President Harold Thompson stated that change is inevitable but that we should never lose sight of our basic objectives. He didn't elaborate on those objectives but I believe our mission today is much the same as it would have been 20+ years ago - "to provide food safety professionals worldwide with a forum to exchange information on protecting the food supply." Harold pointed out the name of Journal of Milk and Food Technology will change to the Journal of Food Protection with the January 1977 issue. In 1980, William Kempa announced the launching of a new journal, Dairy and Food Sanitation (which later became Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation). This journal evolved to be the "Membership" journal by 1982 as it became evident that printing everything in duplicate was not economical. Recently we ran an article written by Elmer Marth giving an excellent summary of the chain of events leading to our most recent name change. Elmer pointed out missed opportunities to change the Association name in the early 80's on the heals of changing the journal's name. A name change discussion also took place in the early 90's, but was again defeated. Elmer's article gives his thoughts on why the name change was overwhelmingly supported in 1999. Among his reasons was that the Executive Board soundly supported the proposed name and the worldwide stature and influence of the Journal of Food Protection had increased. The above summary brings us up-to-date with articles run in DFES since October of 1999. In this issue, see pages 264-270 for the 1983 and 1986 Presidential Addresses. I hope that you have found these reprinted articles as interesting as I have. There are many issues pointed out in these Presidential Addresses that affected where we are today as an Association. We are diligently working on producing a summary history of the Association from its beginning in 1911 through the conclusion of 1999 with the hopes of having the document available later this year. Earl Wright and Harry Haverland are heading up the efforts, so if you want your piece of history included, contact Earl or Harry. You may also contact me at the Association office. |