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2001: Past Meetings

The following is a summary of previously held meetings in 2001 listed in reverse chronological order.
November 27, 2001
Tuesday		 Topic: “What Do We Offer Prospective Clients that is Unique”
As part of the marketing effort planned for the Association of Consulting Chemists & Chemical Engineers, Inc., we need a new brochure to send to prospective clients and others who want to know about the services provided by our members. Several years ago we had a general membership meeting to brainstorm what the Association offered prospective members. From that session we developed the current brochure for prospective members. The session also gave Council a better idea about the members’ thoughts concerning this subject, and generated a lot of additional good ideas. Many of these were used in developing a marketing plan to increase our membership.
The November meeting will again demonstrate the use of a brainstorming session to generate ideas. In this session we will consider what we offer prospective clients that is unique and has special value. The suggested ideas will then be consolidated and prioritized to provide a clear direction for a new brochure for clients and for developing a market plan to reach potential users of our talents.
There will also be several “focus group” sessions to consider additional efforts to make ACC&CE more widely known to potential users of independent consultants.
These brainstorming and focus sessions can develop information we need to reach potential clients for our membership. They are also an opportunity for you to learn several ways to generate ideas and solve problems in your consulting practice. We want and need the ideas of all our members in preparing our new clients’ brochure. We hope all of you will take this opportunity to help make the group stronger and better able to serve our members.
October 23, 2001
Tuesday		 Topic: “The Year Before and The Year to Come”
Speaker: William E. Swartz, President, ACC&CE
 The past year will be reviewed. Much of our effort has been spent developing a foundation for future growth and development. These steps will be discussed and their importance explained as we plan for the coming year. The Association also has spent a great deal of time defining who we are, and where we want to go. As with any such group, we face changes in the market and even greater changes in the methods now used in the marketplace. When we came close to a final decision point, additional questions were raised concerning a potential name change. The current situation will be explained and a suggestion made to the group to resolve the impasse. The remaining portion of the president’s annual report will address the coming year. Several projects will be outlined and explained. We will also discuss ways the group might be able to improve several aspects of our operations and services. Many of these have already been discussed in a general way, but now a time-table and more specific program will be suggested for the group to consider. After the formal “report”, there will be an opportunity for the entire membership to participate in a seminar regarding the situation and where we want to go as a group. We want as many members as possible to participate in the discussions and decisions. Come and help determine where we will be directing our efforts in the coming year.
September 25, 2001
Tuesday		 Topic: “Wine Tasting: Wines of New York and Virginia”
Speaker: Nelson Ayala, Ph.D.
 The first wine growers in country began their vineyards along the banks of rivers and along the shores of lakes in New York and along the hills and valleys of Virginia that closely resembled the wine growing regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy in France. Two hundred years later a thriving wine and tourism industry is making quality wine products to service the sophisticated American wine consumer.
The speaker has been fortunate to have visited many of the vineyards that dot the eastern part of the United States and is willing to share his experiences with a audience thirsty for these stories accompanied by a great adventure in wine tasting. The presentation is patterned after a talk that has evolved over the past nine years as a Tour Guide at the Brotherhood winery. This is meant to be an entertaining presentation with interesting historical content and useful information for the audience.
Dr. Ayala is employed as a Senior Product Development Chemist at CB Fleet, Lynchburg, Virginia. He was previously employed as a Project Scientist at Carter Wallace and a Senior Chemist at Westwood Chemical. He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Virginia and his M.S. from Stony Brook. Dr. Ayala has been an adjunct professor at Orange County Community College, Middletown, New York.
His credentials in speaking about this topic include a 9 yr. career as a Tour Guide at the Brotherhood Winery in Washingtonville, New York and speaking on this topic to the retired chemist section of the ACS and the analytical section of the NY ACS. The speaker has been a member of Toastmasters International since 1990 and has been a past district governor. Dr. Ayala will be providing various wines for tasting. Please join us.
June 26, 2001
Tuesday		 Topic: “Drug Development at Merck & Co., Inc. from the Perspective of Analytical Chemical Research”
Speaker: Dr. Dean K. Ellison
 Dr. Ellison is Senior Director of Analytical Research at Merck and Company. He has been involved in identifying appropriate regulatory tests to control the drug substance since he started his career with Merck 15 years ago. During his tenure, Dr. Ellison has supported numerous product introductions and consequently, he has developed a thorough understanding of the drug development process. His expertise was recently recognized by the National Performance Review Board, and he was presented with the United States Vice-Presidential Hammer Award for his joint work with the FDA during the product launch of Crixivan. Additionally, Dr. Ellison has Published and lectured widely in the area of Analytical Drug Development. He received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from Kansas Wesleyan University and his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Kansas.
May 22, 2001
Tuesday		 Topic: “Some Unexpected Surprises When Starting Your Own Small Chemical Business”
Speaker: Charles A. Garber, Ph.D., President, Structure Probe, Inc., West Chester, PA

Surprises come in all shapes and sizes and colors…..especially when viewed over the thirty plus years period since the inception of Structure Probe, Inc., an independent analytical and testing laboratory specializing in the use of electron and light microscopy approaches for the solution of industrial problems. An early experience involving the bankruptcy of the original venture capital backer, unexpected competition coming from universities and other nonprofits, the impact of business pressures on one’s personal life, the joys and disappointments of developing others to take key management roles in the organization, to the unexpected impact of societal changes leading to the need for changes in the marketing approaches for laboratory professional services would represent just a partial list of the types of “surprises” to be covered.
Also to be covered will be the “latest surprise”, that is, the unique position those who are technically up-to-date in chemistry and physics find themselves in terms of taking advantage of the newest opportunities in the rapidly emerging field of Information Technology.
The presentation is patterned after a talk that has evolved over the past five years as a National Tour Speaker for the American Chemical Society. There will be no slides, no charts, no speaker’s notes. Interruptions from the audience will be encouraged. This is meant to be an interactive kind of presentation with content coming as much from the audience as from the speaker.
Dr. Garber founded and has been president of Structure Probe for over 30 years. During this period, the company, at times, operated from facilities in four different states. He was previously employed as a Research Physicist in the Plastics Department of DuPont’s Experimental Station. This followed receipt of his Ph.D. in Engineering from Case Western Reserve. Dr. Garber has also held adjunct professorships teaching courses in Polymer Chemistry, Polymer Characterization, and Structure and Properties of Polymers. His credentials also include a 15 yr. career as a National Tour Speaker for the American Chemical Society and over 25 publications on polymers and applied materials characterization.
April 24, 2001
Tuesday		 Topic: “Public Archaeology”
Speaker: Dr. Alan H. Cooper

Dr. Alan Cooper has taught Latin and History at Morristown-Beard School for the past 18 years. Educated at Susquehanna University, SUNY Binghamton, Bryn Mawr, and West Virginia University, Dr. Cooper has participated in and directed excavations in Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Connecticut, West Virginia and New Jersey.

For the past seventeen years, Dr. Cooper has directed the public archeology program at the Somerset County Park Commission’s Environmental Education Center in Basking Ridge. The Lord Sterling Manor site produced structural and artifact material from the manor (c. 1762) and later occupations. Over 80,000 pieces of material were recovered and are being analyzed. The Lenape Meadow excavation contains a Late Archaic-Early Woodland Indian village site (c. 6000-2000 years old). Both excavations have attracted hundreds of school children and adults who learn the fundamentals of field archeology as well as the collateral topics of historic preservation and natural resource depletion. During the summer, Dr. Cooper conducts programs in archaeology for middle school children in East Amwell and Readington townships.

March 27, 2001
Tuesday		 Topic: Expanded Council Meeting
The ACC&CE Council will hold an extended meeting from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, March 27th. We hope all members of the Association will join us. At 6 p.m. we will break for Networking/Cash Bar followed by dinner. The dinner registration fee has been reduced to $20 for this special meeting. We will reconvene after dinner to continue our work. We will not have a regular dinner/membership meeting in March. We will return to a regular meeting format in April.
The subject of this extraordinary meeting will be our effort to reposition the Association and expand our membership and areas of interest and support. Unless we devote a major Council meeting to finalizing the changes, we will never be ready to take a final plan to the membership for approval.
The goal of this meeting will be to develop a final plan to be considered by the Association as a whole. We would like to have a final proposal ready for a membership vote in April.
In addition to attending the special Council meeting, we also invite all members to forward their ideas on how they think the group should be repositioned to the committee doing the preliminary work. The following members serve on that committee: Peter Lantos, Chairman, Dan Kruh, Peter Hay, Ernest Coleman, David Riley, Joseph Prane, Don Lorenz, Dave Armbruster, Bill Swartz. Send any ideas or comments to Peter Lantos. You may reach Peter Lantos by telephone: (215) 233-4083, fax: (215) 836-2518 or by e-mail: peterrl@aol.com. Join us on March 27th for the extended Council meeting and planning session. We look forward to seeing you.
February 28, 2001
Wednesday		 Topic: “Biotechnology and the Next Generation of Therapeutics”
Speaker: Arthur M. Felix, Ph.D.
 As the Human Genome Project nears completion, a new generation of therapeutics based on the underlying causes of diseases is anticipated. New materials for drug delivery will enable treatment with novel peptides and proteins based upon DNA sequence information. This presentation will survey classical, present and future trends in drug discovery.
Arthur Felix was Distinguished Research Leader and Head of the Peptide Research Department at Hoffman-La Roche. Following his retirement in 1995, he has been a consultant to the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries. He is Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Ramapo College of New Jersey and Adjunct Professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He serves on the Editorial Boards of several widely read scientific journals and was the recipient of the 1996 duVigneaud Award for his contributions to peptide science.
January 23, 2001
Tuesday		 Topic: “How To Handle a Difficult Client”
Speaker: Peter Lantos, Ph.D., The Target Group, Erdenheim, PA.
We have all encountered clients who posed for us one kind of difficulty or another. Some of the more obvious situations:
·Prospective client engages in brain picking.· The client for one reason or another, declines to pay
·The client wants to renegotiate the contract
·The client becomes unavailable and fails to communicate during the assignment
Peter Lantos, in the course of a consulting career of over 20 years, has encountered these, and many, more complex situations and will share with you the approach he has used in addressing them. He will also solicit from the audience some of their more vexing client-relations problems as well as audience participation in solving them.
Whether you have a difficult client at this time or whether you anticipate having one in the future, you will find it worth while to come to this meeting. You might even help us with some of the solutions!
Peter Lantos has served the plastics and chemical industries as consultant for 21 years. Prior to that he held management positions in industry, including vice president at ARCO Chemical and Sun Chemical, general manager at Rhodia, and technical director at Celanese. He holds a Ph. D. in Chemical Engineering and is a licensed professional engineer. He has a book in preparation: Consulting for Fun and Profit, which is still in search of a publisher.