THE Z FILES: Six Reasons to Make the FLC Part of Your Summer
Things slow down for many of you after Memorial Day, but your FLC will still be making news over the summer months, so you’ll want to keep tabs on our newsletters, the eGroups and other messaging channels. Here are just a few of the reasons to stay informed this summer.
Online Engagement Events. If you’re short on time, check out our brief Member Connect events highlighting the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program on June 7 and celebrating Women’s Equality Day with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on August 2.
We also have several online Lab Showcase events planned. Our series on uncrewed underwater systems starts June 14 and continues August 1 and August 16. Also, this summer we will highlight two labs within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): the Engineering Lab on July 26 and the Communications Technology Lab on August 22. We would love to highlight your lab too!
In-Person Engagement Events. We have an in-person event this week at the Coast Guard Research and Development Center in Connecticut that is also an industry event. We will also be out on the road, including at the BIO International Convention, Tech Connect, the relaunch of the in-person SBIR Road Tour, and ending the summer with an Animal Health tech transfer event in Kansas City August 29-30.
Online Learning. In terms of learning, we have several options. In addition to the on-demand courses that are always available in our Learning Center, we are making recordings available for many sessions from the National Meeting (not every session is available) in case you couldn’t decide which to attend or want to revisit your favorite session. Future virtual offerings will include a session from NIST on the recent Bayh-Dole regulatory updates (the rescheduled date will be announced soon), and Provisional Patents on July 11.
Updated FLC Resources. We have a few exciting rollouts planned involving other key FLC resources.
• Submissions for the FLC Planner are now open, so start looking for your lab’s best photos now.
• You may have noticed that FLC Business has been rebuilt, and you may have seen the new features demonstrated at the National Meeting. We expect the data will be fully loaded and the system out of beta testing this summer.
• We are also relaunching LabTech in Your Life this summer with technical updates that will improve the user experience and will allow us to expand the platform more easily to other locations, including a hospital.
• And, like many of you, we will be delivering our annual Report to the President and Congress.
Leadership News. The FLC Executive Board will also be onboarding some new faces this summer. Normally, those types of changes happen October 1—and yes, there will be things to announce then as well—but we had some vacancies to fill.
• First, Whitney Hastings of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is now Vice Chair following John Eisemann’s retirement; you may recall that Whitney will start her term as Chair beginning October 1.
• Whitney’s former position of Promote Committee Chair is now filled by Derek Parks from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
• A lab promotion created another vacancy in the Facilitate Committee Chair position, which has been filled by Paige George from the Navy.
• Sharon Soucek of NIH, who was elected to succeed Paige as Southeast Regional Coordinator in October, will begin her term early.
On top of all of that, one of our Members-at-Large is retiring and we will be filling that vacancy as well. FLC is a volunteer organization and there are many opportunities if you are interested.
Sneak Peeks. We have a very full slate of activities and opportunities planned for the fall season. Looking out even farther, I have been asked a lot about the next location for the National Meeting and will be making an announcement soon. Stay tuned!