The North Central Chapter held its Spring Meeting on April 28 at St. Mary's University in Winona, Minnesota. Nearly thirty chapter members attended the day long meeting hosted by Brother Jerome Rademacher. Chapter President-elect and meeting organizer, Pete Wildenborg, welcomed the attendees and recognized the meeting co-sponsors Ben Warren, Perma-Fix of Florida, and Joseph Leon, Siemens Environmental Systems Ltd. Doug Gossen of Lakeshore Technical College provided the first technical presentation on public education efforts by the Society and discussed some efforts he is personally involved with. Doug finished his presentation with a call for the Chapter to become more involved with public education efforts within our geographical region. Ben Warren of Perma-Fix of Florida reviewed mixed waste treatment technologies and briefly highlighted Perma-Fix's capabilities for waste characterization and treatment. Tim Donakowski of the Minnesota Department of Health provided an excellent summary of the EPA proposed rule for regulating radon in drinking water and air. Tim's discussion of EPA's multimedia mitigation process generated significant discourse among the meeting attendees. Tim laid out the time line for Minnesota implementation and enforcement of the rule and presented some preliminary monitoring data from community water utilities across Minnesota.

The highlight of the meeting was the presentation by Doug Gossen of the Chapter's Outstanding Science Teacher Award for year 2000 to Steven Schultz of Pittsville (Wisconsin) High School. Mr. Schultz addressed the attendees and shared his own experiences which led to a thirty year career as an exemplary science teacher after spending several years as in industrial chemist. Nuclear science became infused into the Mr. Schultz's curriculum after attending a summer course at the University of Wisconsin in 1972. Since that time Mr. Schultz has immersed nearly three decades of students in nuclear science in the classroom as well as through field trips to commercial nuclear generating stations in Wisconsin and Minnesota and to nuclear science research facilities in Wisconsin and Illinois. Mr. Schultz implored the Chapter to inspire other teachers in the same manner by working with academic institutions to provide meaningful courses and by serving as technical resources in the classroom.

After lunch the Spring Chapter Business Meeting was held. The results of the Chapter election were announced. Newly elected officers will take office following the Fall Business Meeting. The election results are: President-elect: Greg Smith and Council Members: Irene Patrek and Gary Yarrow. Following the Business Meeting, three additional technical presentations were made to the attendees. Sue McClanahan of the Minnesota Department of Health updated the attendees on the status of the Minnesota Agreement State application. Progress continues to be made with Minnesota reaching Agreement State status in Fall of 2002. Mike Lewandowski of 3M discussed a simple intranet delivered web based radiation machine training program that was created last summer to meet internal corporate training needs. A brief demonstration of the features of the training program resulted in several attendees sharing their successful experiences with computer based training at their institutions. The final speaker of the day was Pete Wildenborg of Northern States Power - Prairie Island. Pete shared an interesting health physics investigation related to thermal neutron activation of alkaline batteries used in personal electronic devices carried by workers while performing a nonroutine task at a nuclear power plant.