Mike Raffay, Iota, 2000 Residence: Corpus Christi, Texas Personal Information and Involvement – b Jan, 1981 B.S., Chemical Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN, 2004 Toxic Systems Process Engineer, Parsons, Newport, IN 2004-2008; VCM Process Engineer, OxyChem, Ingleside, TX 2008-2014; Process Engineer Lead, Flint Hills Resources, Corpus Christi, TX 2014-2019, Principal Process Engineer, Chemours, Ingleside, TX 2019-Present Initiated into Iota chapter, March 25, 2000 Served as Vice Master of Ceremonies (2002), Master of Ceremonies (2003), PIC April 2004 North Central District Council Committee Member 2004-2008 South Central District Council Committee Member 2008 – Present Ritual Committee Member 2006 – Present Professional Representative 20152016, 2018-Present Attended 46th through 54th Biennial Conclaves (2002 – 2018) Statement and Goals – “To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.” - Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC) “Given the large number of chemistry demonstrations our fraternity provides, it would be irresponsible to ignore the lessons learned from [others’] incidents.” – Me, PR Statement & Goals, Fall 2017 “Promises made, promises kept.” – A politician many of y’all don’t side with, but bear with me: the quote works here My “Statement and Goals” written for the Fall 2017 PR elections (for the ’18-’19 term) focused heavily on improving the safety culture within the Fraternity Upon assuming responsibilities as a PR in January ’18, I immediately started working again with the GMA {does anybody honestly read PR statements? The third brother w/o a national office to email me at mike.raffay-at-alphachisigma.org saying they read this will win something TBD} on chemistry demonstration safety Unfortunately, the Fraternity was distracted by other issues I knew I had to do the right thing, even though it was going to hurt During the 54th Biennial Conclave in Pittsburgh (July, 2018), I submitted legislation to immediately prohibit chemistry demonstrations until such a time that the Supreme Council, by unanimous vote, revokes the prohibition I consulted with many others before submitting the resolution, knowing there would be significant short-term impact I searched in vain to find another option I knew the Collegiates would be impacted most, so I consulted with a number of District Counselors who had a better sense than I for how the Collegiate Chapters would be affected (One DC ultimately seconded my resolution.) My hope was that the prohibition would be short-lived The legislation was voted on and passed It was not until January, 2019 did the Supreme Council vote to reinstate chemistry demonstrations Sure, those 6 months stung; what kind of chemistry fraternity is unable to do demonstrations?!? Now, the Fraternity has adopted the American Chemistry Society’s guidelines for chemistry demonstration safety I am confident that we, the Fraternity, are now in a better place I kept the promise I made when you elected me in the Fall of 2017 We now follow established safety guidelines for our chemistry demonstrations While we are today than we were last year, we still can improve Whether or not I am reelected (granted being reelected will certainly make this easier), I will continue to use my experience in industry and lessons learned from published incident investigations to drive a healthy safety culture for our Fraternity