News

Chapter receives chapter Excellence Award

Vermont Healthcare Engineers' Society received the Chapter Excellence Award as determined by NEHES for calendar year 2006. The award was given during the 2007 annual meeting in Portland, Maine.

Vermont Healthcare Engineers Society held its regular scheduled meeting on Friday, May 11, 2007, at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, in Bennington, Vermont.

The educational component of our meeting consisted of presentations dealing with NFPA 99, Standard for Health Care Facilities and NFPA 101, Life Safety Code.

The eighteen attendees were delighted and enlightened by the joint presentation of these two important codes by two of our very close colleagues. Ray Forsell, CCE, P.E. focused on NFPA 99 while Gene Cable, FPE, P.E. focused on NFPA 101.

Ray, a long time member and past Chapter President of VHES, is a Clinical Engineer with The Technical Services Program at The University of Vermont. Ray has, and continues to also work with several Vermont based Healthcare Organizations, helping them prepare for compliance review inspections as well as with their fire safety training programs.

Jeff Nichols was selected to attend the 2006 Fall Conference in Westport, Massachusetts “on the house.”

In NEHES endeavor to increase membership, they offered each chapter a free Fall Conference attendance. This included the attendance fee plus hotel, a $500 value.

Jeff was selected at the July VHES meeting after determining that he hadn’t attended before and would likely not attend without help from the offer.

Jeff works at the VA Hospital in White River Junction and is an active member of VHES.

We would like to thank NEHES for such a generous offer and encourage them to continue the effort.

Mark A. Blanchard
VHES President

After coming to Bennington in February 2001, from Missouri, Doug Stringfield has added another chapter to his life and will be leaving our state for the sunny skies and hurricanes of Orlando, Florida. He will be leaving Southwestern Vermont Healthcare as their Director of Engineering and Security to take on the position of Facility Manager at the Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital and the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies. Both hospitals are a part of Orlando Regional Healthcare.

For the past 2 years, Doug served as the chapter president of VHES and was looking forward to this year's upcoming NEHES Fall Conference. He thanks all the NEHES and VHES members who have made his stay in Vermont a successful and enjoyable time.