Recognizing key personnel is an important responsibility for each of us.
Unfortunately, the ABRF is not sufficiently awash in funds to be able to
provide the kind of recognition for field engineers that Nadine suggests
(see below). However, the mechanism that Gary suggests is probably the
most powerful for doing that person real and concrete good. Tell the
person's supervisor or boss. Better yet, put it in writing. Many people
are reluctant to do so, but this probably has the most impact. Whether it
is a field engineer, a staff member in your lab, or a secretary that has
exceled, put it on paper. This can lead to raises, promotions, perks
(attending ABRF meetings?), etc. If it's your staffer, fight for that
raise or promotion. Instruments are nice, but people do science.
What does ABRF do with its money? The 40 people who attended our business
meeting in San Diego know, since we talked about it there. The membership
fee pays only for the essential services of basic management of the
society, mailings of all sorts, newsletter production and mailings, the
costs of just having members, and other basic activities. Our corporate
sponsors (31) and supporter (1), who have yielded to Audree Fowler's
persuasive skills, provide additional support for our activities, as does
some of the (variable) meeting income. In years past, we had startup
grants from the NSF and DOE, thanks to the efforts of John Crabb and Ken
Williams, and others, but no longer. Some of our important everyday
activities have been run largely by volunteers, but as these activities
become more complex and take on a life of their own, they will need to be
supported. These include this electronic discussion group (no cost),
discussion archives (no cost), web site (no cost until recently), and other
electronic activities that John Rush takes care of. We just switched to a
commercial server, and we anticipate that our electronic needs will grow,
at some cost, even with our larger group of volunteers. This is also a
good time to thank our favorite webmaster Ken Mitchelhill, as well as Dirk
Krapf, our archivist. The research group studies are something we support
to help define standards in analysis and synthesis, and are a unique
feature of the ABRF. The new ABRF travel awards to the ABRF meeting have
been very successful. While these are primarily supported by the generous
and far-sighted contributions of PE-ABD, the ABRF supports them as well.
HP supports our ABRF Technology Award, and the ABRF takes care of the
associated expenses. The programs that we support in association with
other meetings most generally support the education of the scientists who
use our member resource labs in academia and biotech. Our peer-reviewed
publication is taking on a new life, which Clayton Naeve will have
something to say about soon, and that takes some money, too. Murray
Hackett, John Stults, and the MS research group have enabled us to offer an
MS/MS peptide sequence course before ABRF99. We are very pleased that
Prof. Don Hunt and his colleagues have agreed to teach this course, which
will be of real benefit to our members. (Look for it in your
Call-for-Papers for ABRF99.) Our public affairs activities cost a little
money, and if you ask "What are public affairs?", please look on pages 2-3
of the Dec. 1997 ABRF News (also on our web site). Our new efforts in this
area are already resulting in increased funds for NIH and NSF to support
shared instrumentation grants. We are continuing efforts to increase these
funds further, as well as provide other mechanisms of support for
technology research and resource labs. As a society, we're growing up, and
need to save funds to run the ABRF better so that we can provide even
better service and activities to our members in the future. The annual
meeting could provide some excess funds to help in that effort, but it is
risky, and could also put us in the red. Karen De Jongh works hard to
prevent that from happening. We keep listening to our members, since they
constantly come up with good ideas that should be developed and
implemented. I've certainly forgotten a few things, but this is a good
start.
Best regards,
Ruth
PS: As an unusual example of how these meeting outreach activities can
tangibly affect our members, at the Technology Day that we organized at the
Int'l Biochem & Mol Biol meetings last summer in San Francisco, I spotted
the chairman of one of our members diligently attending both morning and
afternoon sessions concerned with mass spectrometry. This member had been
seeking support to purchase a new DE-MALDI-MS, which is now sitting in a
crate outside their core lab (paid for by university funds), awaiting
installation.
At 01:55 AM 7/31/98 -0700, Gary Hathaway wrote:
>> The kind of service person I am thinking of is exemplified by Greg
>>Aiolo, PE Sciex. He was there at the beginning of the ESI revolution and
>>quietly kept our instruments running while we struggled to learn how to use
>>them. I participated in three set-ups where he did the work, he worked
>>hard to get the instruments running optimally for each lab, and kept them
>>that way for years, at great personal expense. He also spread info around
>>about how different labs did things, making it easier for us all to get
>>good data. His thorough, careful approach inspired students to bring the
>>same attitude to the instrument. Furthermore, he always assumed that if I
>>said the instrument wasn't working, it wasn't that I was doing something
>>wrong (I may have been, but that was always the last thing he considered,
>>having exhausted all other possibilities).
>>
>>Katheryn Resing
>>
> Katheryn,
> I couldn't agree with you more. I presume we are talking about the same
>person, Gregg Aiello. There have only been two times I felt compelled to
>write a letter of commendation for a service person. Gregg was one of them,
>Sigmund Sales was the other. Both now work for PE-Sciex. I might add that
>sending a personal letter to a company might be a quicker and better way to
>get valued service or sales personnel the recognition they deserve.
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------
>Gary M. Hathaway, Director
>PPMAL - Protein/Peptide Micro Analytical Laboratory
>California Institute of Technology
>139-74, Division of Biology
>Pasadena, CA 91125
>
>http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~ppmal
>email Gary: hathaway@caltech.edu
>email facility: ppmal@caltech.edu
>phone: lab (818) 395-6388 or office (818) 395-2769
>FAX (818) 449-3414
>-------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>