Report of the 47th INMM Annual Meeting:
A Record-Breaker by Any Standard

By Charles Pietri
Chair, Technical Program Committee

But above all, it is reported that overall the quality of the papers and their presentations were best.

We get all this information from data compiled from our evaluation surveys, session chair reports, INMM HQ staff observations, verbal comments at the meeting, and written comments after the meeting. Very little opinion goes into this report and none of my personal thoughts unless I specifically identify them. Look at this year’s Report Card later on.

So why was there the significant growth and obvious enthusiasm at this meeting? We don’t really know yet but INMM plans to keep doing whatever it is to ensure continuing success. In fact, Charles Curtis, president of the National Threat Initiative (NTI), in his August 8 letter to INMM President Cathy Key stated, “I want to congratulate you on another successful INMM Annual Meeting and express my appreciation for your personal leadership of INMM throughout this last year.”

However, not all went well this year. Two days before the Annual Meeting we received notice that our Opening Plenary Speaker Olli Heinonen, deputy director general, and head of the Department of Safeguards at the IAEA, would not be able to participate in the Annual Meeting because of urgent matters at the IAEA. (A month after the meeting he informed me that “…turbulent times seem also [to] be in front of us”.)

But INMM folks came through: with the help of Jim Larrimore, Jim Tape and Leah McCrackin we were able to get a copy of Heinonen’s speech from Vienna, track down Jill Cooley, director of concepts and planning at IAEA, who we proposed would give the talk, and then get approvals to have the paper presented. Of course, Cooley gave a most interesting talk on the very timely topic of IAEA Safeguards – Staying Ahead of the Game, (Olli Heinonen, author). It was evident to all that Jill was not merely reading the text but rather she thoroughly understood the meaning and impact of the paper.

The talk focused on the need for change within the system to be able to find innovative solutions and avoid further proliferation of nuclear weapons and the clandestine means to produce them. (I was personally pleased to have such a knowledgeable expert make the presentation.) We were all smiles.

After the Opening Plenary Session, an interview was conducted at the INMM Roundtable during lunch by our JNMM Technical Editor Dennis Mangan. There was the usual lively discussion on several topics that you can read about in the Roundtable interview that is located in the fall issue of the Journal as well as Olli Heinonen’s complete paper; the paper also will be found in the Proceedings of the INMM 47th Annual Meeting.

In general, there did not seem to be major concerns at this meeting (after resolving the Opening Plenary) – no unexpected excessive paper withdrawals after the meeting had started and no significant defaults in attendance by country or facility, or anything else. We were told by many that the 47th Annual Meeting was another success and to “…keep it up.”

We did have some exciting firsts beyond the record breakers, one of which was our increased student participation that we’ll review later on.On the downside we also had a record-breaker withdrawal of 59 papers! Can you believe that we started off with over 420 abstracts submitted this spring? It was very interesting to note the unusually high number of abstracts submitted along with the equally high number of withdrawals. INMM is still trying to make some conclusions about these events.

And how would we ever survive, much less thrive, without Glenda Ackerman and her award-winning Registration Committee. (See details later.)

This year our faithful INMM HQ Staff consisted of Leah McCrackin, our executive director, who knows everything ; Lyn Maddox, our conference director; who can and does fix everything; Madhuri Carson, our conference administrator who makes order out of chaos - usually; Patricia Sullivan, the Journal managing editor, doing what needs to be done to help the meeting run smoothly; and, this year, Natalie Freeley, a new face substituting for INMM Administrator Kesha Bunting who decided to stay home to have her baby – poor planning, I say! (Don’t fret - Kesha will be back soon!)

On Saturday morning, before the official opening of the 47th Annual Meeting, two significant events took place: the INMM Executive Committee met to discuss worldly activities of interest to INMM including the proposal status of the World Institute of Nuclear Security (WINS); and the Annual Meeting of the New Brunswick Laboratory Measurement Evaluation Program.

One of the values of the Annual Meeting is the opportunity for many attendees to “piggy-back” their meetings here. Many have told us that without INMM’s meeting it would be otherwise difficult to get the time, place and attendees for their side meetings. After all, the INMM Annual Meeting is where everybody is! (The day before an orientation session related to INMM history, processes and activities for interested parties was held to more fully acquaint those individuals on the inner workings of the Institute.)

The long-established time for the six INMM Technical Divisions to meet and discuss issues and topics of importance is Sunday afternoon – a forum where the most knowledgeable professionals in the nuclear materials management community are assembled. As I visited each meeting I found that they were well attended and hopefully some good issues were developed further and others resolved satisfactorily.

Sunday is also the traditional time for the ANSI/INMM 5.1 Analytical Chemistry Laboratory Measurement Control Committee to meet. This ANSI N15 Committee has just completed the draft document N15.51 Measurement Control Program - Nuclear Materials Analytical Chemistry Laboratory and its renewal by ANSI is being processed. Another Sunday pre-meeting event was an early morning information gathering session: NNSA MC&A Implementation Panel Meeting chaired by Amy Whitworth.
 
A fitting way to end the first official day of the meeting was the President’s Reception on Sunday evening. This is the occasion for meeting colleagues and friends in the nuclear materials management community in a relaxed atmosphere. It’s also a good way to prepare for the formal sessions starting early next morning. It was a very active evening complemented by food, beverages and fellowship.

For our exhibitors, we try to plan events such as the President’s Reception and coffee breaks in locations that give visibility to the exhibits and an opportunity for the meeting attendees to visit with these exhibitors. Some of the attendees actually want the exhibitors to stay longer so that they will have a better opportunity to see more of the exhibits.

These exhibitors deserve a lot of recognition for the way they spend a few days of their lives setting up displays and meeting with interested individuals who gain some insight into the practical applications and the innovative technology available for use. This year there was plenty of space for the exhibits and for the attendees to easily roam the various booths. If this year was good, next year in Tucson will be a delight for the exhibitors – and attendees, too.

The Awards Banquet took place on July 18 and this year ended with live (and loud) music. (After all Nashville is the home of country music.) The following awards were presented: Meritorious Service Award to Scott Vance, and Special Awards to Leroy (Lee) Leonard and Connie Hall. Resolutions of Respect for several of our deceased members were read: Tohru Haginoya, Richard A. Schneider and Fred H. Tingey. 

This is the fourth year that Professor Paul Ebel has conducted his fabulous and internationally recognized Speakers and Session Chairs Tutorial following the Speakers Breakfast each day. (I’ve been told that the attendees come to hear him rather than get instructions from me.) This year Ebel provided a brief summary of the past tutorials and then followed with a new series of helpful, even critical, pointers. (Now if only all of our speakers would follow Paul’s advice we would have exceptional meeting presentations – and put Paul out of business.)

LCD PowerPoint© projection systems for speaker presentations appear to be managed well once again with very few issues. INMM thanks Ebel and the technical division chairs and their colleagues for continuing to make the process work successfully.
 
As we previously said a variety of means were used to evaluate the Annual Meeting.
The Report Card this year was better than in previous years with some notable exceptions that were mostly very positive. We must be doing something right. I’ll bet it’s because we listen to all the comments our attendees offer and take action on those that are sensible and within our control to do so.

Here come the ratings:

The responses we get from the electronic survey is never very large. For example, only 29 percent of the attendees responded to the survey. In 2005 it was 25 percent, 2004 (31 percent), 2003 (5 percent - last year of the written survey). So, be aware that these findings may not be typical of the entire group of participants but only those who took enough interest (constructive comments or complaints) to respond.

Once again this year the Overall Annual Meeting process was rated similar to last year’s – mostly as good-excellent with excellent commendations for the Call for Papers, Online Abstract Submission process, Preliminary and Final Programs, the Online Program, the Technical Program Committee and the ever-effective and gracious INMM HQ Staff.

The Pocket Schedule-at-a-Glance again had the highest rating with the Registration Process following closely. We had a great student turnout and the papers and their presentation were good. TheOpening Plenary session was rated as good+ ; possibly would have done better if our scheduled speaker had been able to present his paper in person.Unfortunately, there were not a significant number of responses for the Closing Plenary to make an exact judgment.

The Technical Information Exchange, Logistics and Exhibits areas were also rated highly good-excellent (mostly good). In fact, about 90 percent of the responders thought that the papers and their presentations were good-excellent despite some individual comments to the contrary.The Hotel and Facilities were not rated as high as last year’s Phoenix site – this year it was given a good-excellent rating by 70-85 percent of the responders. (Wait until next year: if you liked Phoenix, you’ll love Tucson – does not include the weather over which we have no control!)

Once again, regardless of any other factors, nearly 94 percent of the respondents indicated that the INMM Annual Meeting met their needs and expectations!

INMM continues to receive good meeting evaluations from those attendees that took the time to respond. INMM reviews all comments provided; some of them are addressed below while others are of an administrative nature (handouts, pocket schedule, coffee breaks, LCD projector details, etc.) that will be taken into consideration by the Technical Program Committee and INMM HQ staff. Please note that these comments may not be entirely representative of attendee sentiment. Nevertheless, we take the opportunity to provide some responses to comments that appear to warrant further discussion:

• Overall, another well-prepared, well-implemented and well-attended Annual Meeting. Congratulations. We just put this one in to set the tone!
• Excellent meeting, well-organized and conducted and beneficial. The speaker's breakfast and use of the TPC [Technical Program Committee](preparation and monitoring) in conjunction with the technical divisions contributes significantly to the overall success. Many issues are ironed out, which in turn makes the flow of the meeting transparent. Another kudo – INMM really tries hard.
• Papers of interest – consider developing a Web-based capability that will allow attendees to build and print a “papers I want to see” itinerary to facilitate switching between sessions to catch different papers. Good idea – INMM has already started to plan for this feature.
• Too many long talks at Awards Banquet; need to shorten up the length of award presentations. The awards banquet was too drawn out and dramatic. It needs to be crisp. INMM management will take this point under consideration.
• Too many parallel sessions of interest and some overlapping make it difficult to attend all sessions and always losing time going from one session to the other. But no real suggestion to improve it unless you stretch the conference on the whole week? Too many papers and too many sessions. Consider extending the meeting or reducing the number of papers/sessions. I think the meeting was excellent. Where I have indicated 'Good' is only because the meeting had the aspect of a three-ring circus – meaning that there were so many good presentations being given in different sessions – it was hard to catch them all. I don't know how this can be corrected. I would hate to eliminate presentations. We hear this comment each year and it is somewhat of a paradox because each attendee has his/her own concept of what papers they would like to hear. We know it’s no real consolation to the individual but we have urged our attendees to impress on their management the need to send more staff to the Annual Meeting to cover all of the papers of interest. Extending the week by even one day does not seem to be viable based on many comments that even four days (five days if we include the Sunday meetings) is overload.
• I found Nashville to be rather uninviting. Needless to say the area around the Renaissance was not the most conducive to bringing families and for enjoying free time. I noticed this year a paucity of families at the meeting. The meeting was great but leaving the hotel was a bit depressing in that Nashville's downtown is typical southern urban decay and sprawl. On the other hand we find a different perspective: Venue was very good being downtown in a vibrant city. And: The hotel location was bad. It was not feasible to walk to any reasonable restaurants. And yet more: This was a nice meeting but the location (Nashville) was great for me but I would think if someone took their family there would not have been enough for them to do. And again: All in all it was a good conference and the hotel was very nice. Having so many restaurants within walking distance was also nice. So, once again we have a diversity of opinion about the venue for the meeting. In the past we have been urged by a significant number of attendees to have a “city location” rather than a “resort”. We tried it – and some like it, some don’t. INMM had a record-breaking attendance – was it the location or the program, or both? Or did the location not matter that much?
• Suggest in the future that INMM go ahead and pay for projectors in every room so we don't have to worry about this. We will bring the laptops. The requirement that volunteers deal with getting audiovisual equipment should be reviewed. If it isn't cost prohibitive, using the services of the hosting conference center should be considered. The cost is the deciding factor and it has been evaluated each year – currently it is prohibitive but we will do our annual review on this topic again for next year.
• More notices could be given out sooner for submissions and an early time frame for acceptance of papers should be given. The whole process is during the busiest time of the work for our government and an earlier notification of papers could be given out in March. The final paper submission could be given by end of June. The problem of final paper submission is a growing concern to INMM. Each person who presents a paper makes a firm commitment to provide a final paper – this year the due date was June 16. Yet, we have about 5 percent of the papers that have not been submitted – up from less than 1 percent for the past several years. (INMM will not accept papers for presentation from these individuals next year.) We start notifying potential authors monthly at least nine months in advance of the meeting. We also include that information in the Call for Papers in October of each year, in the Speakers Manual, and in the confirmation notice and letter sent for abstracts accepted. It used to be of professional pride to present a paper at such a prestigious society as INMM and subsequently have it published in the Proceedings of the INMM Annual Meeting. What has happened?
• Closing Plenary speakers need to be identified early, so that attendees can plan around the closing. Many left early because they had no notice on who was speaking, and they could not justify the extra day to management because they could not show benefit from extra day. This really needs to be fixed, and identification of Closing Plenary speakers given as much attention as Opening Plenary. For the past few years that the Opening Plenary speaker frequently is not present and someone else “reads” their speech. The Closing Plenary speakers appear to be selected on an ad hoc basis. The stature and quality of the plenary speakers has gone down significantly over the years and requires attention. Richard Rhodes was the last impressive plenary speaker. INMM realizes this is an issue and it has tormented us for years. One way to avoid the disappointments is to solicit speakers through a Speakers Bureau at a cost not acceptable to anyone ($50,000 to $150,000). Richard Rhodes spoke to us for a relatively small pittance because of long standing personal relationships – he was a friend and highly interested in INMM and what it stands for. I would, once again, solicit any specific input on plenary speakers for our Annual Meeting.
• Start presentations as scheduled. I attended one presentation that started 10 minutes early. Do not reverse the order of presentations. I attended one session in which the one I tried to attend had been re-ordered (and not changed on the schedule). Interpreters for attendees should sit at a distance from the rest of the audience. It is very annoying to hear talking in the background when you are trying to listen to a speaker. Papers should be presented in English only. Having the speaker present in a foreign language and an interpreter re-present to the audience more than doubles the time to present information. Do not allow speakers to run over time limit. This makes it impossible to get to another session if it is not in the same room. One of the problems facing INMM is how to get some our session chairs and presenters to read, listen and understand the instructions for a successfully managing a session. INMM explicitly, on many occasions and in several media, instructs the session chairs and presenters to start and end on time and never to rearrange the talks. Yes, we need to address the interpreter issue and the resulting cross-talk. As for translations, there are only a very few speakers who really require a translator; it would be better to resolve this issue by allowing a double session so as to give the speaker and translator sufficient time to make a sensible presentation. INMM needs to discuss this and other approaches further.
• Posters should run TWO days or have an entire session dedicated because it's very difficult to attend both oral and poster sessions. Each year I never get enough time to peruse the posters. We had outstanding poster presentations this year and many of them. INMM will discuss the practicality of extending poster sessions for two days next year.
• Some of the rooms were overcrowded and didn't allow for enough space especially items that would be more in the political arena and high on the agenda. Some rooms tended to be overcrowded, confining and hot while others had less attendance. Each year when the Technical Program Committee reviews the abstracts and places papers in sessions, the Committee is asked to determine the size of the room needed for each session based on potential attendees. Occasionally, we guess wrong – it is sometimes difficult to know what the makeup of attendees will be and their interests. Our apologies.
• We often lack time to take notes during the presentations/conference. Perhaps the speakers could prepare some printed papers (more developed than the abstracts) to the attention of the persons attending their presentation. It would permit to keep in mind the major points of their intervention. For many years INMM has strongly urged presenters to bring copies of their papers, or surrogates, to their session for distribution to interested parties. There has been only a small response to these requests.
• The space provided for exhibitors was too small. It seemed that the exhibitors were crowded. And yet we received other comments: A few more booths would be good, but it was a nice number, not too crowded. With the exhibits closing on Wednesday it makes the conference feel like it too is over that day and not Thursday. Maybe we need to encourage the exhibitors to stay longer?
• The heat seems to be increasingly oppressive in the cities that are chosen for this event. I always include this comment each year and the answer is always the same: INMM negotiates the best overall deal for meeting location, space and amenities possible. This usually means that the outside weather is not the most attractive for tourism and we get the better deal. Even so we still get complaints that our hotels are above per diem! However, I can assure you that the weather in Tucson next year will be hot but much less humid – hopefully, the temperature will be in the low 100°Fs and not at the 115°F levels we have had in the past. (An alternative remedy: stay inside the cool hotel during the day and listen to papers.)

Again this year the major issues facing INMM in managing the Annual Meeting program were excessive paper withdrawals, frequent speaker changes, and late/absent final paper submittals. INMM will continue to try our best to keep paper withdrawals and speaker changes under control but it requires significant contribution from all meeting participants to make the program what we all expect it to be – a well planned and coordinated event.

We have addressed the final paper submission problem elsewhere in this report. But be assured thatINMM continues to recognize all of you who cooperated so well to make the meeting a success.

Scott Vance, Membership Chair, notes that “the New Member/Senior Member Reception was once again very well attended and, in my opinion, a great success. We had a good attendance of both new regular members and new Senior Members, and we also had a fantastic attendance of new student members. We not only had the usual opportunity to have them meet officers of the Institute but Debbie Dickman gave them a short, encouraging talk regarding the benefits of becoming involved in both their technical divisions and local regional chapters.

The most … [apparent] … aspect of this year's reception is that there were a significant number of individuals who stayed for the entire hour and … great interaction between the younger and more … [senior] … members present.” It appears that the significant amount of funds that the Institute commits to this event is paying off.

This year, Mark Leek, chair of the Students Activities Committee (SAC), took a competent and comprehensive approach for this meeting. He organized the mentor program that matched INMM members with students to help personalize the conference for students and help them choose how to organize their time. This effort involved an orientation meeting Sunday night to conduct the matching of members and students. Mark also hosted a Student Initiative meeting Wednesday night for students to learn about career opportunities in nuclear materials management.

This involved presentations on the subject matter of each of the technical divisions by their chairs. Further, in concert with INMM HQ staff, he arranged for two international students to attend the Annual Meeting, all expenses paid under the auspices of the SAC and with funds provided by the INMM Executive Committee (EC). The two students were from Obninsk and Shanghai. (A third student from the Urals was unable to obtain a visa in time for the meeting.)

A block of six hotel rooms was reserved for use by 12 students, again under the auspices of the SAC and with funding provided by the EC. Two Texas A&M University (TAMU) students were recipients of INMM supported air fare and hotel accommodations as first prize in the student paper competition sponsored by the TAMU INMM student chapter. Our student population is growing and their level of enthusiasm continues to spread.

As we said earlier, there was very large turnout of students this year and many presenting papers – a bit of a surprise for us.INMM continues to promote student participation in the Institute by, among other incentives, encouraging students to present the results of their research at the Annual Meeting.

This is the fifth year of such an initiative and 30 papers were in competition for the J.D. Williams Best Student Paper Award. Many of our INMM colleagues, especially Chad Olinger, chair of the Memorial, Education and Outreach Subcommittee, and others too numerous to mention, are responsible for making this student competition a success.

First place in the competition went to Andreas Enqvist, Chalmers University of Technology, Goteburg, Sweden, and second place to Nicholas Smith, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, USA , while Josh Tackentien, Mercyhurst College, USA, took first place for the best poster presentation.

Posters, posters, posters – 30 in all filled the spacious room and even popcorn was served in the afternoon. There were plenty of visitors (and more wishing they had the time to visit). Taner Uckan masterfully orchestrated the process and even had a real card game going in the rear! (IAEA Nuclear Inspection Simulator presented by Josh Tackentien, Mercyhurst College – a student who won the Best Poster Award this year.)

The Government-Industry-Liaison Committee (GILC), Amy Whitworth, chair, presented three speakers for the Closing Plenary session’s theme, Nuclear Security in the Post 9/11 Environment: NRC Regulation of Nuclear Facilities in the Post 9/11 Environment by Mark Shaffer, Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Defense Nuclear Security in the Post 9/11 Environment by Cheryl Stone, Defense Nuclear Security; and The IAEA Nuclear Security Plan for 2006-2009 by Anita Nilsson, International Atomic Energy Agency.

In closing, if this Annual Meeting has been successful, if it met or exceeded your expectations, and if you enjoyed it, the credit goes to the nearly 400 speakers, the session chairs, the Technical Program Committee with their varied duties (and especially the Technical Division Chairs), and the INMM HQ staff. I’ve tried to give you just a slice of life at an INMM Annual Meeting and my apology if I’ve left out any individual, group and event.

So much for the 47th Annual Meeting – let’s talk about next year at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort in Tucson, Ariz. on July 7-12, 2007.

Yes, it’s one week earlier than usual. That means you have to start planning for it now. Complete your research, get your subject approved by management, write your abstract and submit it by Feb. 1, 2007, then write your paper and submit it early – certainly no later than the June 8, 2007, deadline. And if you are planning to organize a special session, you need to think about it carefully and contact me or a technical division chair by Nov. 1, 2006, or sooner – no last minute ventures, please.

INMM looks forward with much pleasure and anticipation for your presence at the 48th Annual Meeting next year – another gala affair. Let’s do it!

Updated: October 1, 2007

Updated: October 1, 2007