From the desk of Thomas Williams, President of the Vermont Chapter of the IAAI.....

Please join with me in wishing our long time member, David Eliassen, well in his semiretirement. David has been a long time supporter of the Vermont Chapter of the International Association of Arson Investigators and has, on numerous occasions, represented our Chapter at the International meetings of the IAAI. We have all appreciated his participation and we wish him well.

At this time I’d like to announce that one of our Board Members, Danny Coane, has resigned his position on the Board of Directors due to personal time constraints. Although he won’t be serving on the Board, he’ll continue to work as a Licensed Private Investigator and will be a familiar face at our Chapter meetings. We thank him for his service.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce Elizabeth Wilkel as our newest Board Member. Ms. Wilkel is a Licensed Private Investigator and is known to many of you for her work throughout Vermont. She has already become an invaluable member working on various details of the Chapter. Ms. Wilkel also serves as Vice-Chair of the Vermont Real Estate Commission and is a Member of the Land Use Panel of the Vermont Natural Resources Board.

Please visit our Chapter’s website: www.vtiaai.org/ as your source of upcoming training meetings and other important information.

As an important adjunct to our Chapter’s webpage, we have also created a new listserve through yahoogroups. Please sign-up for our new listserve by visiting http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/VT-IAAI/ and click on the “join this group” link shown in blue on the homepage. This listserve will enhance communications to members and also enable all members to post individual messages plus links of interest for fire investigation resources and training. Please sign up for our new listserve ASAP, and if you have any questions on the sign up process, please get in touch with Mike Lane.

Training - at the risk of sounding like a broken record I would urge each and every one of you who work in the area of fire investigation to keep your training up to date - it’s absolutely vital. This message echos the message recently given by Bill Schmidt, President of the New York Chapter, at their meeting in Albany, NY. Your knowledge base must be more than simply reading NFPA 921.

Terry Francis has suggested, and several of us agree, that it would be beneficial to set up a mock trial using experienced attorneys for all of us to brush up on our trial testimony/cross examination skills. Please watch for more information on this important new training session which is tentatively planned for the annual meeting in June.

Over the next several months I will be representing our Chapter at various IAAI meetings including the annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. I’m also planning to meet with several of the Chapter Presidents from neighboring states and additionally I’m planning to attend the International Conference in Baltimore, Maryland as a guest. As we look ahead in this new decade I continue to appreciate the dedication and professionalism of all of our Chapter Members.

Sincerely,

Thomas Williams
President, Vermont Chapter
International Association of Arson Investigators