First let me thank the members of the American College of Animal Science (ACAS). I am honored to have been elected as an ACAS officer and look forward to the coming year as ACAS President. I also want to thank John Bernard for his service as ACAS President for the past year, Kenneth Cummins for his service as ARPAS Executive VP, and Kelsey Grant of FASS for her hard work with the ACAS administrative duties.
The Annual Meeting of ACAS, the board certification arm of the American Registry of Professional Animal Scientist (ARPAS), was held during the Joint Animal Science Meeting (JAM) in Salt Lake City on July 20, 2016. Four new ACAS members were announced: Richard Sellers of the American Feed Industry Association, Ryan Reuter of Oklahoma State University, Kevin Leahy of Diamond V, and William Schultz of 2TT Cattle Company.
Several of our new members applied through the “Highly Qualified Individual” designation. If you know highly qualified ARPAS members that you feel should become ACAS members, urge them to apply through this method. Qualifications include current membership in ARPAS, an MS or PhD in animal science or a closely related field, and experience as a professional animal scientist. Qualified individuals can gain membership/accreditation either by being recognized as a highly qualified professional or by passing a series of exams. If you have any questions, check out the ACAS section on the ARPAS web site, or contact one of your officers.
Officers for the coming year are: Andy Cole, President; Randy Walker, President-Elect; and Luis Solorzano, Secretary-Treasurer. Directors for the individual disciplines are Jeffrey DeFrain, Animal Nutrition; Kenneth McMillin, Animal Food Science; Allan Schinckel, Animal Breeding and Genetics; Jonathan Goodson, Animal Physiology; Geoffrey Cochrane, Animal Welfare, and Jeff Pendergraft, Applied Animal Behavior. One duty of the Discipline Directors is to oversee the development / updating of the ACAS exams. A number of our exams need to be updated so if you would like to help with these duties, please contact the appropriate director.
As you are probably aware, 2016 was the last year for the JAM Meeting: ASAS and ADSA will not be meeting together for the next few years. In Salt Lake City, the ARPAS Governing Council voted to meet with ASAS in Baltimore in 2017 and with ADSA in Knoxville in 2018. The ACAS membership voted to meet at the same time and location as the ARPAS Governing Council. Most ARPAS members are members of ASAS or ADSA, but not both. However, both ASAS and ADSA have agreed to let ARPAS members, who are not members of their society but that attend the ARPAS meeting, pay a member’s registration fee. Hope to see a good crowd at ASAS next year in Baltimore.