Executive Committee - NCIFT

Executive Committee

NCIFT MEETING MINUTES


Meeting Minutes May 25, 2022

Date: May 25 2022
Time: 5-6 pm
Location: Zoom

Attendees:
Parastoo Yaghmaee – President
Gabriela Swamy – Secretary
Xi Feng-Dir. At Large
John Frelka- Dir. At Large
Jeff Sheasley- Dir. At Large
Mathew Poon- Dir. At Large
Bruce Ferree-Symposium Chair
Ashwini Wagh – Education Chair
Imelda Vasquez - NCIFT Office Contact
Charlwit Kulchaiyawat- Scholarship Committee
Jamie Lawrence- HornBlower Editor
Apurva Bhave – Social Media Chair
Vivian Wu – University Liaison and USDA representative
Carol Jian – UC Davis Food Tech Club
Katie Routt – UC Davis Food Tech Club
Katie Uhl – UC Davis Graduate students represesntative

5:04 PM Called to Order, Meeting called to end 5:52 PM (PST)

  1. NCIFT Ballot and results
    Candidate elections was held in April 2022. The new board has been formed and Dr. Zhongli Pan will be the incoming President Elect. Nishtha Lukhmana will be the Treasurer. Parastoo introduced the other new volunteer members and shared the Leaders Roster.
    John suggested to reframe the by-laws to include balloting protocol. Bruce suggested to create an adhoc committee and reframe the by-laws. He also indicated that change in bylaw might need member approval. John will review the bylaw and provide feedback to the board if a change in bylaw is needed or writing an a protocol for balloting is sufficient to capture best practices.
  2. Section Service Award and Section Outstanding Volunteer
    The Section Service Award recipient is Erin Evers. Parastoo thanked her for her decade long service to NCIFT and in chanelling the New Professionals Networking.
    The Outstanding Volunteer is Charlwit Kulchaiyawat. Parastoo thanked him for his seamless efforts with the scholarship activities.

3. Events recap

  • Supplier’s Night and Golf outing recap
    Bruce provided an updated on the event. May 9 and 10 were the dates for the NCIFT supplier’s Night events. Five events over the course of these 2 days. The Golf Outing and a dinner on May 9. On May 10, the educational symposium followed by a student Poster competition and suppliers’ Expo was held.
    The golf outing was a celebration of the 30th golf outing and Marty Potnick and Dave Sholty were recognized for their 30 years of coordinating it. Golf was at the exclusive Ruby Hills Golf Club with dinner following in their large facility.
    Many sponsoring and attending companies provided raffle prizes for the raffle.
    Here are some statistics on the events.
    Golfers: 104
    Dinners: 32
    Volunteers: 7
    Sponsors: 21

On May 10th, our Symposium covered the topic of ‘The Future of Food’ and we had 4 wonderful speakers. This event was presented with both in person and virtual speakers and was moderated by NCIFT member Dr. Lauren Shimek. The event was attended both in-person and virtually via Zoom. Here are some statistics on the event.
Attendees: 108 in person, 32 Zoom

  • Poster Presentation/Competition
    Paratoo provided an update on the poster session. Nine abstracts from SJSU, UC Davis, Chico State were accepted for the competition.
    Undergrad winner: Jovita Avila, Chico State
    Graduate winner: Hannah Louvau, UC Davis
  • Expo
    Bruce provided an update on the expo. Here are some statistics on the event.
    Exhibitors: 191
    Attendees preregistered: 210
    Attendees registering on day of: 50
    Sponsors: 37
    Platinum: 6
    Gold: 11
    Silver: 20

    Bruce pointed out the learnings from the event and assured that the final financials will be submitted to the NCIFT board by IFT 22.

  • Science Fair
    Parastoo provided an update on behalf of Rachael Hung. The section sponsored three events in the three counties (San Francisco, Monterey, San Jose- Santa Clara) which were well received by the audience.
  • San Jose State University
    Alex provided an update on the event. Around 20 attendees were present for the webinar.
  • Chico State University
    Parastoo provided an update from Maria. The event was successfully completed.
    The session had 3 panel speakers highlighting on Sustainability, with about 25 attendees. Maria has received good feedbacks on the event with requests for more events.
  • UC Davis Food Science Showcase
    Parastoo updated that it was a virtual event and about 50-60 participants attended the event. David Kaplan from Tufts Univ was the keynote speaker.
    Awards and scholarships were announced.
  • Educational event
    Ashwini updated that 3 events were conducted by the section this year. She raised her concern to increase attendance in these events and asked for suggestions from the members.
  • New professional events
    Parastoo updated the latest new professional event which was conducted successfully the night before.

4. Scholarship Committee update
Charlwit updated that the travel grant announcement will be sent by the end of this week

5. Hornblower
Jaime sent an email earlier in the week to submit articles. The following points were highlighted

  • Committee chairs - please provide an article about committee (e.g. Nomination committee, Scholarship committee, Science Fair committee etc.)
  • Students and student groups- submit research summaries, activities summaries and information about scholarship acceptances
  • Any past memories are welcome

    Bruce promised to send an article on the Supplier’s Expo. Carol also indicated that she will be sending an email about articles that could be sent from UC Davis

6. Upcoming confirmed events

  • NCIFT at AgStart with the city of Woodland (June 1, 2022)
    Matthew Poon updated that the event is 20 mins away from Sacramento on June 1, 5:30 – 7:30 pm. He is looking for 2-3 volunteers to help out in the event
  • Volunteer appreciation Happy Hour (June 2022)
    Tentative date– June 14. Committee chairs were requested to prepare the list of volunteers in their events
  • IFT National (July 10-13, 2022)
    Deadline to commit to becoming an IFT FIRST Ambassador is Friday, May 27 @ 11:59 pm CT

7. Upcoming in progress events

  • Orora Packaging Solutions talk and tour (Newark) – July 2022 Looking for volunteer to help with organizing the event.
  • OLIPOP Talk and tasting – September 2022
  • Central Valley at AEMTEK tour (Modesto) – September 2022
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PRESIDENT
Dr. Vivian Wu
USDA-ARS

PRESIDENT-ELECT
Jagriti Sharma, PhD

IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT
Dr. Zhongli Pan
UC Davis

SECRETARY
Dr. Gabriella John Swammy
SJSU

TREASURER
Dr. Nishtha Lukhmana
Premier Nutrition Company

MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY
Ms. Erin Evers
SPI Group

DIRECTORS-AT-LARGE

Leigh Schmidt

Shayanti Minj

Karen Dawes

Marika Lodle

 

COMMITTEE CHAIRS

NOMINATING & ELECTIONS COMMITTEE CHAIR
Parastoo Yaghmaee

SUPPLIERS’ NIGHT EXPO CHAIR
Mr. Mike Toomey
Advanced Biotech

GRANTS COMMITTEE CHAIR
Charlwit Kulchaiyawat

NEW PROFESSIONALS GROUP CHAIR
Ms. Erin Evers
SPI Group

VOLUNTEER COMMITTEE CHAIR
Poonam Bajaj

SCIENCE FAIR AWARDS CO-CHAIR
Ms. Rachael Hung
Impossible Foods

SCIENCE FAIR AWARDS CO-CHAIR
Jagriti Sharma, PhD

SOCIAL MEDIA CHAIR
Meredith Morris-Gaudreau

EDUCATIONAL CHAIR
Dr. Ashwini Wagh
Clorox

STUDENT POSTER COMPETITION CHAIR
Parastoo Yaghmaee

GOLF TOURNAMENT LEAD CO-CHAIR
Daniel Andrews
Elite Spice Inc

GOLF TOURNAMENT CO-CHAIR
Mr. Jaspreet Walia (Jas)
AEMTEK

STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES

University Liaison
Dr. Vivian Wu
USDA

UC Davis:
Summer Plepalakon
Undergrad Student

Jonah Messinger
Undergrad Student

Yu Wang
Grad Student

Natalia (Nati) Ribeiro
Grad Student

Ms. Stephanie Myers
Campus Contact

CSU San Jose:
Dr. Xi (Alex) Feng
Campus Contact

CSU Chico:
Dr. Maria Giovanni
Campus Contact

OTHER IMPORTANT CONTACTS

HORNBLOWER EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Ms. Jaime Lawrence
Barentz

HORNBLOWER CO-EDITOR
Ms. Anissa Lee
INW Pro-Form Laboratories

DEIB AMBASSADOR
Ari Kenney

JOB LISTINGS:
Ms. Imelda Vasquez
NCIFT Office at Marketing Designs

NCIFT OFFICE
Ms. Imelda Vasquez
NCIFT Office at Marketing Designs