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President’s Pen— September 2007 |
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Tennessee Valley Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers |
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Tennessee Valley Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers |
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President’s Pen – September 2007
We met for our September meeting at the Sagebrush Steakhouse in Oak Ridge, with a total of 24 members and guests attending. The guest speaker was Norm Rockwell, of TVA. Norm had planned to talk about TVA’s program for fire protection in coal handling facilities. However, a very recent transformer fire was much in the news that week, so we moved to the more topical discussion of protecting transformers. We owe Norm a great debt of appreciation, not only for his time and effort in a wonderful presentation, but also for his flexibility in adjusting his topic at the last minute. Judging by the lively discussion, it was well received. Even better, Norm promised to come back some day soon, and give us his Coal Handling presentation. We can all look forward to that.
Business discussions were very brief – some preliminary plans for a seminar (more to follow), and announcement of the John D. Hoogesteger Scholarship awards for the ‘07/08 school year. The real newsworthy part of the scholarship program was the extremely high caliber of students who applied – never saw so many “A”s on a stack of resumes. Obviously, these young people are going to make a major contribution to our industry in the coming years, and I think we can take pride in whatever assistance we can provide to make sure they are able to stay with the program. On that note, remember that it isn’t too early to be talking to current and prospective students about next year’s scholarship awards. It’s a successful program, and one we need to keep talking about.
Sincerely,
Jim Kern Chapter Vice President |