History of the New Jersey section, AACC1.

At the 1969 national meeting of the American Association of Clinical Chemists in Denver, a group of clinical chemists from New Jersey informally discussed the possibility of forming a new section. The subject came up repeatedly during the course of the meetings and the idea seemed to become more attractive as time passed. In October of 1969, I sent a letter to David A. H. Director of the AACC, informing him of our intention to form the Section, and that we wanted a temporary charter. There were 15 sponsors. A series of organizational meetings were held in New Jersey in order to map strategy, to recruit the required number of members necessary to petition for the formation of a new section, and to draft a constitution. Between the months of October and December 1969, a slate of officers was selected. The officers were: Treasurer-Secretary. During this time, delicate negotiations were being held between the Executive Committees of the New York Metropolitan and Philadelphia Sections to agree on borders for the proposed section. Concurrent with these activities, the newly elected president and officers began moving toward incorporating the section. The flurry of activity continued unabated, even though we were operating without a charter and, without it, the ultimate success of our activities was in doubt. David Roethel came to the rescue by sending us a provisional charter we could continue. The question was, would we get a permanent charter at the July 1970 meeting in Buf-falo? Without the final charter, there was no section. There was no turning back, so the officers proceeded as though the negotiations would be favorable. On January 30, 1970, an important letter was sent to me by Seymour Winsten, then chairman of the committee on local sections. The subject of that communication concerned one of the final obstacles to our section's formation-namely, its geographical limits. In part, the letter read: This is to inform you that a meeting will be held on Febru-11:00 a.m. We will meet in the lobby of the building and go to the assigned room. The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss the boundaries of the provisional New Jersey Section. In addition to your section, representatives of New York and Philadelphia will be present at this meeting. The officers of our provisional section were both pleased and apprehensive because the result of this meeting could be an outright failure to …