6:00 p.m.     Mix and Mingle Time

6:30 p.m.     Dinner

7:30 p.m.     Celebration of our 50 and 60 Year Members followed by the presentation by Don Burland

Executive Committee meeting immediately after the talk.

The mechanisms by which the Federal Government supports basic scientific research and education can seem to the outsider to be confusing and untidy. Support is spread over a number of agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health to name only a few. In this presentation, the history of science funding in the U.S. will be outlined, the mechanisms by which funding is authorized and appropriated by Congress described, and the rationale for Government support of basic research detailed.

Dr. Burland received an A.B. degree from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. degree in chemistry and physics from the California Institute of Technology. After a two year post-doctoral stint at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, he joined IBM's Research Division where he served in various research and management positions for 26 years. In 1997 he joined the National Science Foundation's Division of Chemistry where he was Executive Officer and Acting Division Director. He has been a Consulting Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford University and is currently a Visiting Scientist in the Chemistry Department at the University of Virginia. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, has been a member of the National Academy of Science's Chemical Sciences Roundtable and the ACS's International Affairs Committee. His research interests have included charge transport in crystalline and amorphous systems, nonlinear optical properties of polymers and femtosecond laser spectroscopy. He has also directed groups studying the physics and chemistry underlying electrophotographic printing and magnetic storage.

Western Carolinas Local Section of the ACS honors our members who have attained recognition by the National American Chemical Society as 50 year and 60 year members. Awards will be presented to these WCACS members at the September meeting which will be held Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at the USC-Upstate Campus in Spartanburg, SC. Below are the names of our members who have achieved this status. Please join in expressing our congratulations to them.

The Southeastern Regional Meeting (SERMACS) will meet October 21 – 24, during National Chemistry Week, at the beautiful new Puerto Rico Convention Center. The abstract submittal program is open and may be accessed at www.sermacs2009.org. The SERMACS 2009 theme is Think Positive, Think Global, Think Chemistry, and it is reflected in the programming. with topics such as Supramolecular Science and Self-Assembly, Current Trends in Environmental Chemistry, Nanotechnology: from Energy to Medicine, Frontiers in Nucleic Acid Chemistry, Industrial Biotechnology, New Polymeric Materials and Applications, Bioenergy: Fuels, Chemicals, and Power, Process Technologies in Bio-Pharmaceutical Industry, and Preparing the 21st Century Chemistry Workforce: Opportunities and Challenges for the Student and Faculty. Visit the website for more details. For additional information contact the Program Chair, Dr. Néstor Carballeira, nmcarballeira@sermacs2009.org or 787-764-0000, ext. 4795.

SERMACS 2009 has arranged for special meeting rates at the Conrad San Juan Condado Plaza, in historic San Juan, where you can make a reservation online or call them at 888.722.1278 or 787-977-4773. Mention the SERMACS meeting to get the discount.

Our Webmaster, Dwayne Grassie, would welcome your "press releases" about activities that you believe would be of interest to our section. As he says so eloquently on our web site, "without active members reporting the activities of the section to me there would be no web site because there would be nothing to report." Dwayne can be reached at: MAG-IT@charter.net

To focus on the specific information needs of chemists and chemical engineers working in industry, the American Chemical Society is launching www.boilthisdown.org

The site is designed to help you do the following:

(1) Quickly grasp the Top News of the day affecting chemists and chemical engineers employed by industry (as reported by the world's top scientific and business publications).

(2) Provide ACS industry members employed by small and mid-size companies with information targeting their specific needs.

(3) Highlight Featured Articles published in scientific and business publications that help you become a better manager and scientist, and

(4) Identify and access the ACS programs, products, and services of greatest value to the Society's industry members.

The site has many rich features that allow you to comment on articles, rate them, and share or post them to other sites. The interactivity of the site was purposefully designed to allow for a continuous process of improvement through readers' comments and ratings of the various articles, features and ACS programs.

Times have changed. Once, your challenge was getting access to information. Today, you are drowning in information. We will separate the wheat from the chaff so you can quickly access the information you need to be successful. We hope you will be frank with us about where we are doing things right, and where we can improve.

Please visit the site, bookmark it and check back daily for new postings. We look forward to your participation on www.boilthisdown.org.

Sincerely,
Max Saffell

Editor, Boil This Down
m_saffell@acs.org

The American Chemical Society awards program is one of the means by which the society meets its obligation "to encourage ... the advancement of chemistry in all its branches, the promotion of research in chemical science and industry, [and] the improvement of the qualifications and usefulness of chemists." The continuing excellence of the ACS awards program requires that a number of highly qualified chemistry professionals be nominated and that great care be taken in preparing the nominations.

Nominations for the national awards administered by ACS to be presented in 2011 will be solicited on July 1, 2009.

Forms for nominations and supporting information as well as a detailed description of ACS national awards are available online at www.acs.org/awards.

Any individual may submit a nomination for an award, unless that individual is a member of the selection committee for the same award. However, selection committee members may submit nominations for other awards.

Nominations and inquiries concerning awards should be directed to the Office of the Awards Programs, e-mail: awards@acs.org.

The deadline date for all nominating material for 2011 ACS National Awards is November 1, 2009. Earlier transmittal is encouraged.

Dr. Laura Wright - Chair 2009.
Dr. Sid Parrish - Chair-Elect 2009.
Alice Claggett - Secretary 2009
Dr. Julia Brumaghim – Treasurer 2009
Mrs. Lucy Pryde Eubanks - Councilor 2009-11.
Dr. Royce S. Woosley – Councilor 2008-2010
Dr. George Heard - Alternate Councilor 2009-11.
Dr. John Kaup - Alternate Councilor 2008-10.