Atomic Show #225 – ANS Winter Meeting Leadership Perspectives

The American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting is in progress in Anaheim, CA. I was not able to attend the meeting this year, but I was able to arrange to talk to a couple of people who were there.

Guests on this episode of the Atomic Show include Gene Grecheck, the Vice President and incoming President of the ANS and Dr. Michaele (Mikey) Brady-Rapp, the President of the Society.

They provided a summary of the events, the theme, the attendance and the energy coming from the large student contingent. Each of them discussed their priorities and plans and some of the initiatives underway at the society.

They are both interested in keeping track of the developments associated with efforts to replace the LNT model with one that better matches epidemiological data and laboratory observations of how humans respond to ionizing radiation. Dr. Brady-Rapp talked a little about the need for nuclear professionals to weigh in with comments about the disadvantages for nuclear energy that were buried within the proposed EPA carbon dioxide reduction rules.

There are about 1,000 people at the meeting, which means that something less than 10% of the Society members are able to take advantage of this week’s networking and professional development opportunities in person. Many members are finding it more and more difficult to travel to the meetings due to constraints at their places of employment.

Whether members are government employees, vendor employees, utility employees or independent bloggers/podcasters, travel budgets are not what they used to be and they do not go as far due to increasing airfares and hotel prices. One of the priorities that Dr. Brady-Rapp mentioned during our talk was a creating ways to better use available technologies to provide members more of the networking and professional development benefits of membership even if they are limited in their ability to attend meetings in person.

I hope you enjoy the show. If you attended the meeting — or are still there today — please feel free to share your observations. They will provide a different perspective than those of the busy leaders.

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