The Executive Board held its annual meeting at the Battelle Conference Center in Seattle Washington on March 13 and 14. Attending were the 1993 Board Members: Steve Carr, Lowell Ericsson, Greg Grant, Dan Marshak, Ron Niece, and Ray Paxton, the immediate past Board Members: Al Smith and Dave Speicher, the Newsletter Editor: Ken Williams, the Research Director: John Crabb, and the 1993 Meeting Director: Beth Fowler. Seattle residents Lowell Ericsson and Ray Paxton did an exceptional job organizing the meeting.
This meeting provides the venue to critically assess the state of the ABRF and plan for its future. A wide range of topics were considered, including finances and budget, membership, corporate sponsors, grant support, meetings, committees, the role of ABRF in influencing government funding policies, the newsletter, general organizational structure, the business office, and short and long term goals.
Several areas were identified for immediate attention. These include the preparation of applications for funding when the present NSF grant expires at the end of 1994, expanding our role in the area of nucleic acids, investigating the feasibility of establishing a committee concerned with carbohydrate and glycoprotein analysis, expanding our participation in meetings sponsored by other organizations whose interests overlap with ours, exploring an independent ABRF meeting, and expanding our membership and corporate sponsorship base.
Ray Paxton presented the financial state of the Association and projected budgets for the next three years. Dues renewals this year indicate that membership will probably not increase significantly over last year but a gain is expected again in 1994 due to the increased activity in the area of nucleic acids. John Crabb will continue as Research Director and will immediately start exploring future avenues of funding and will coordinate the writing of new proposals. Steve Carr is exploring the establishment of a Carbohydrate Committee and Steve Carr and Ray Paxton will soon be launching a drive to increase our corporate sponsorship. Our Business Office, which was established with FASEB last year, has been working well and we look forward to continuing our association with them.
Overall the meeting was very productive and the ABRF remains healthy and in good shape. We are very pleased that the response from our membership and the rest of the scientific community has been very positive. We will continue to strive for improvement and increased service to our membership.
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