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Dairy, Food and Environmental Sanitation

Postcards from Iowa, September 2001

I think that IAFP is THE food safety organization and I would like to see it grow
By Jim Dickson, IAFP President

Wow! What a meeting! It seems to be almost a cliché to say that this was the "best meeting ever." But in many ways it was. We had another year of record-setting attendance, which has been the trend for the last several years. The technical sessions were exceptional, and the fellowship was what we have come to expect from IAFP meetings. In a very real sense, this was the "best meeting ever," which only makes me anticipate next year’s meeting in San Diego even more.

Before I make any more comments about the meeting, though, I need to ask a question. Do you recognize the names of Donna, Karla, Beth, Donna, Pam, Bev, Didi, Shannon, Lisa, Julie or Lucia? How about David? These are the people that worked behind the scenes to make the meeting happen. There were many long days in Des Moines for weeks in advance of the meeting, and many days in Minneapolis that began before 6:00 a.m. and ended long after the sessions were finished. These people took care of all of the details, so that all you had to do was walk in and sit down at the sessions. If you have ever organized a meeting of any kind, imagine what it takes to organize and operate a 3-day meeting for 1,400 people. If you ever have the opportunity, a few simple words of appreciation to any of them would mean a lot.

As I thought about the meeting on the way home from Minneapolis, I thought about what makes the meeting so good. Why do I look forward to this meeting every year more than IFT or ASM? There are many reasons, but they all have a common theme, and that theme is the people. It is the IAFP Membership that makes the meeting what it is. All of the things that happen are because somebody, some IAFP Member, chose to make it happen. This includes everything from the individual abstracts submitted to the symposia and the Professional Development Groups. None of these would happen without one or more members saying, "I want to do this. I want to make this happen." And it does happen, year after year.

Although the formal programs are the strength of the Annual Meeting, I think that the informal aspects are equally important. I know that not only will I see the "cutting edge" of
the science, I will also have the chance to visit with the individuals conducting the research, and find out what they have planned for the coming years. It is also a time for me to renew personal friendships with people I may only see once a year at the meeting. It is also through these personal interactions that new ideas are born, and future plans are made. Without these interactions, the meeting would certainly lose many of the qualities which makes it so attractive.

Finally, I wanted to give you some idea of what I would like the organization to accomplish over the next year. I think that IAFP is THE food safety organization and I would like to see it grow.
I believe that there are a number of food safety professionals out there who either don’t know of us, or know of us and have not decided to become a part of the organization. I would like to bring these people into the organization, so that we can all benefit from our shared knowledge. So how do we reach these people? I believe that our Members are our best representatives. A national conservation organization that I belong to recently challenged its members with an "each one, reach one" campaign. I would like to challenge you to identify one person that you know, and ask them to join IAFP. As the organization becomes stronger, we all benefit from the diverse knowledge of our Members. I really believe that we all benefit by bringing as many food safety professionals into the organization as we can, and so I’ll talk about this often over the next year.

Same time, next month.

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