The Z Files: New Year, New Faces, Same Commitment

The Z Files: New Year, New Faces, Same Commitment

October 7, 2025

Happy New Year! This new fiscal year started with a bit of a whimper with a lapse in funding. Hopefully, the Congress can keep a continuing resolution (CR) in place long enough to avoid further disruption and pass a budget.

The new fiscal year also brings a change in your FLC Executive Board. The recent Bylaw change expands the Members-at-Large to four. Your new EB is:

  • Whitney Hastings will continue into a second term as Chair, but she has changed organizations, moving from HHS/NIH to DOE Fermi National Laboratory. This creates two firsts for the FLC, the first Chair to change positions while Chair and the first Chair from a GOCO lab.
  • David Lee (DOD/Army), will move from Northeast Regional Coordinator to Vice Chair.
  • David Zimmerman (DOE/PPPL) starts as the Northeast Regional Coordinator.
  • Meghan Sheehan (EPA) is the new Midwest Regional Coordinator.
  • Nick Valasquez (DOE/Sandia National Laboratory) is the new Midcontinent Regional Coordinator.
  • Amanda Corbel (FNL) continues as Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator.
  • Sharon Soucek (HHS/NIEHS) continues as Southeast Regional Coordinator.
  • Kimberly Minafra (NASA/Ames) continues as Far West Regional Coordinator
  • Annie Bullock-Yoder (DOD/Navy) is now the Promote Committee Chair.
  • Jeff DiTullio (DOD/Army) continues as the Educate Chair.
  • Paige George (DOD/Navy) continues as the Facilitate Committee Chair.
  • Vladimir Popov (HHS/FNL) continues as Member-at-Large.
  • Andy Myers (DOE/KCNSC) moves from Midcontinent Regional Coordinator to Member-at-Large.
  • Joe DiRenzo (DHS/USCG) starts as Member-at-Large.
  • Bhoomija Hariprasad (VA) starts as Member-at-Large.
  • Linda Burger (DOD/NSA) continues as immediate past Chair
  • Dick Paul continues as the National Advisory Committee Chair.

I say it every year, but the FLC depends on volunteers for all our programs. Please consider volunteering! One place to begin is to look for things that enhance your current role. A key part of our mission is helping our labs in their work, and that tends to be where the most fruitful opportunities are found. Along the way, you meet people across agencies and build interagency skills. We offer a wide range of opportunities from single task (e.g., Award Judge) to standing committees. If you’re interested, contact us at [email protected].

We track many things to ensure that FLC resources are well used. In case you missed it, we now publish interactive metrics quarterly on the FLC website under the “Engage” navigation. One of the biggest metrics we track is total number of engagements. This is the big picture, how many people in total use our FLC programs. I am happy to report that this number continues to trend upward, and we are very appreciative of people interacting with our programs. These do include many things, from the National Meeting, to webinars, the Learning Center and even our Podcast. While these numbers saw improvement from nearly 14,000 in 2023, to just over 15,000 in 2024, I am thrilled to note that we have had an impressive 19,795 engagements in 2025! There is a great deal more detail on the website, but we are very happy to see this growth because it means we are doing things that the community is using.

We are still hoping, planning, and expecting to be in-person for the National Meeting May 12-14, 2026, in Seattle, Washington! I do want to note a couple related open items. The FLC Award submissions are currently open through Nov. 17. The call for National Meeting sessions is also open and closes Nov. 3. We are looking at what to do with the shutdown and lost time, as far as extending these deadlines go; more to follow on that.

Thank you for a great year!