We have just completed an all-day meeting of the Finance Committee along with the Council Chairs, Vice Chairs and EXCOM with their supporting staff to develop the 2019 budget for submission to the next meeting of the Board of Directors at the RSNA meeting. The collective effort of all participants is greatly appreciated. It is very impressive how active and involved our members are with a tremendous variety of interests on behalf of AAPM. Every activity from economics to each scientific task group to all international activities to each educational endeavor are discussed and evaluated for importance and delivery of information back to the organization. Special thanks to Robert McKoy, our Director of Finance, and Mahadevappa Mahesh, our Treasurer for all their work in preparation of this meeting.

This set of meetings here at Headquarters brings me close to the culmination of years of service to AAPM as a Board Member since 1994. It has certainly been a privilege to have participated in the many activities of this great organization as a Chapter Representative, then Board Member at Large, then Treasurer, then Administrative Council Chair and finally through the Presidential Chain for a total of 24 years. The final activities left in my term of service as Chair of the Board will be the Board of Directors meeting at the RSNA and final EXCOM conference call in December. I have thoroughly enjoyed serving the many and varied requests of the members of AAPM and I want to thank you all for allowing me to work with you and get to know many of you through various committee activities. Representing AAPM at many outside meetings both here in the US and internationally has given me a broad perspective of the role of the medical physicist in industry, regulatory agencies, research and certainly clinical roles. I want to especially thank those who have served on the Executive Committee with me for the past three years. As some of us have expressed too many times, the Executive Committee spends more time together than we do with our spouses.

One of those international groups that I have enjoyed working with for the past several years is the IAEA in Vienna. The latest IAEA meeting at which I represented AAPM was the Radiation Safety Culture meeting held October 1–3 at IAEA Headquarters. Participants from around the world and representatives of professional organizations from the US, Europe, Asia and Africa each presented the development status of Radiation Safety Culture in their nations. The many programs of the IAEA and WHO were also presented. Participation by Lisa Brudigan of Texas, representing the CRCPD, added the regulators perspective to this well organized meeting developed by Debbie Gilley and chaired by Madan Rehani, Chairman of the IOMP.

Planning is being quickly completed for the upcoming meetings of the Strategic Planning Committee by phone and in person at the RSNA meeting. Many of our members have presentations in Chicago along with the many committee meetings and finally the Board of Directors meeting at which all committee and council appointments will be approved along with the 2019 budget. Cynthia McCullough, President-Elect, has been working extremely hard to complete all of the Presidential appointments of liaisons and committee chairs. If you are attending the RSNA meeting, please plan to come to AAPM Reception on Tuesday evening at the Headquarters hotel, the Hyatt Regency-Chicago (not the Hyatt at McCormick Place). For those of you who may be interested in how committees of AAPM work, please attend the meeting of interest to you on Sunday. All AAPM committee meetings are open for attendance by any member except Executive Committee, Ethics Committee, and Awards and Honors Committee. We would especially encourage any of our younger members who may not have attended a committee meeting before to come visit one or more of our meetings and introduce yourself to the Chair.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to have been your President and the many opportunities that you have afforded me to attend your chapter meetings and get acquainted with you. It has been a great pleasure for me to serve AAPM. I look forward to continuing to participate in upcoming meetings and having more free time to visit with you.