I had the opportunity to attend my first Local Section New England American Industrial Hygiene Association meeting last night in Waltham, MA. It was a joint meeting with the Greater Boston Indoor Air Quality Association. I brought my husband along since the evening topic of wet crawlspaces is applicable to his work as an HVAC specialist.
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| Russ Kraiterman and Jennifer Maclachlan |
We arrived at 5pm so we didn't have much time to mingle with the crowd of hundred or so that turned out for this event. I did manage to find and speak to the one person I knew in the room: Russ Kraiterman of AJ Abrams Company. Russ has much enthusiasm and a special fondness for the HNU PI101 whose easy sales throughout the 1970's and into the 1980's made him a good living. He exclaimed: "PID's put my kids through college and they must have put you through college too"! I echoed with a "Yes, Yes". He said he saw my dad last month at the National Meeting in Montreal and couldn't believe the event we had to celebrate my dad's work with PID's and Industrial Hygiene was two years ago. Russ was one of the first manufacturer's representatives to have the HNU portable photoionizer line. He said he sometimes misses the analog units. I told him that I think alot of people do and that we still service a surprising number of these thirty and forty year old analyzers.
We were asked to take our seats and were introduced to each of the three vendors who were supporting this meeting by way of sponsorship. I thought this was great to have vendors in the meeting room. In fact, don't be surprised to see me at a vendor table at an upcoming NEAIHA meeting showing off our PID's, confined space entry analyzers and portable GC's. I introduced myself to Bart Ellingsen, NEAIHA Past President and Debra Gursha, NEAIHA Secretary and expressed my interest in participating in this marketing genius, I mean sponsorship opportunity.
I tweeted this picture above from the meeting: Jennifer Maclachlan @pidgirl
A special treat: listening to Joe Lstiburek speak at #NEAIHA #IAQA joint meeting in Waltham, MA #awesome I should have also included #ticketyboo in my tweet and if you went to the meeting you'd know what I mean. I can tell you that I am now a fan of Joe Lstiburek mostly because I admire his presentation stage presence but also because he is funny as hell.
It was worth the ride, worth the hectic rush from volunteering a double shift at field day at my daughter's elementary school (in the rain) to attend this meeting. I look forward to participating in upcoming events with the NEAIHA folks as well as continued cooperation between the AIHA and IAQA with respect to the registry that they are developing.
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