23 We went digital on our communications this year for our SCCOOP newsletter, and our website got better each month as PDR designs elevated aesthetics and content throughout the year. Our events and activities are literally reliant on the quality of our promotion and ease of registration of each event and activity – it cannot be overstated how important this function is to our success. We were one of the last chapters to stop printing and mailing our newsletter. The printing and postage were not only expensive – but time consuming – posing challenges literally every month to be able to get the issues mailed out in time for early registration discounts for our events. The chapter sadly incurred a large personal loss when our webmaster, Paul Romanowski, died suddenly and at a young age, in December. It is with heavy heart we had to say good-bye to Paul unexpectedly, as he was such an integral part of our chapter success in recent years. Perry Romanowski is working with our 2019 MWSCC Board to continue our news and registration functions as a permanent solution is found. Quick Books was implemented by our Treasurer-Elect, Frank Wagner (of SCT) with help from SCC National Treasurer Liz Streland (of Croda) along with other changes in how we capture and report our financial activities. The result is that we have ready and immediate access to very detailed information around revenue and expense streams for all our events and activities. It used to take us days (literally) to compose our year-end financial statement and annual budget. With the improvements undertaken by Frank, this now takes only a few hours. All activities, events and questions during the year related to finances have seen similar gains in efficiency and time – our most valuable resource! It was a year of vision, hard work and diligence – exhausting but rewarding! Our chapter remains challenged for enough volunteers at a leadership level to continue the quality of programs, activity and enrichment undertaken this past year. We look to our National and Area II leaders and colleagues to help us with this ongoing challenge. A big thank you to the “village” it takes to make MWSCC a success, our dedicated 2018 MWSCC Board. One of whom, Anatoly Dameshek, received the Stanley Allured Lifetime Award for service to the MWSCC chapter – along with Frank Jarzemboski, post-humous (a first): Peggy Bennett Bob Buzzelli Cinda Carlson Dennis Ciechna Anatoly Dameshek Chris Daraska Gene Frank Katie Harris Ashraf Hossain Lisa Kringas Mary Milinko Marcie Papadakis Crystal Rampaul Perry Romanowski Frank Wagner Cindy Yu Deborah Zartler 2018 MWSCC Chair

24 Greetings! A combination of unpredictable weather in January and speaker conflicts gave us a slow start to the year. Our first chapter meeting was held in March. Sonal Patil from Seppic, gave an engaging presentation entitled “Green is the New Black!” on the state of naturals in the industry. Attendees learned a lot about the different certifying agencies in different markets, what their requirements all. Sonal also presented emerging claims that may be the next big idea. . . or the next ingredient to avoid. April brought us Curt Durfee from Twincraft Skincare. Curt leads Twincraft’s innovation group on the soap side of the business. He led a lively discussion about all things soap: from the origins of soap, to the differences between oil saponification and fatty acid neutralization, and some very entertaining stories about how to ruin a soap plodder. We were blessed with another beautiful June day for our annual Golf Outing. Special thanks to Andrew Slesinski, who continues to spearhead organizing the outing with Blackstone National Golf Club. We made a few changes this year to enhance the outing and look forward to another successful event in 2019! Our September meeting was held at Living Proof’s Style|Lab in Cambridge. Jim Hammer of Pharmasol gave a great overview on all the aspects of formulating aerosols: from the different types of aerosols to formulation challenges and regulatory aspects. All peppered with amusing anecdotes. Karl Popp arranged an amazing list of speakers for our Educational Seminar. This year’s focus was on Cosmetic Product Preservation. Steve Schnittger from Estee Lauder, Howard Brown from Lincoln Fine Ingredients, Rocco Burgo from Inolex, Dr. Patrick Crowley from Callum Consultancy, and Tia Alkazaz from Active Micro Technologies all did an amazing job enlightening us on the trends, changing regulations, and challenges facing chemists while selecting the right preservative system. Special thanks to our sponsors – Active Micro Technologies, Koster Keunen, Lincoln Fine Ingredients, Lubrizol, Schulke, Symrise, and Thor Specialty Chemicals – for your support and tabletop presentations. In November, Giorgio Dell’Acqua came – in a snow storm – to present on Sustainable Product Development. Giorgio gave some interesting case studies were companies are working together to reuse parts of plants that typically end up as waste. One example is taking citrus fruit peels from the juice industry to extract essential oils. I’d encourage everyone to check out the blog he hosts for the New York Chapter at https://nyscc.org/about/blog. We also ended the year with 2018 National President, Perry Romanowski, who also braved the snow to install our new officers for 2019. The officers are: • Emily Nichols – Chair • Kaylee Miller – Chair Elect • Joy Welsh – Secretary • Beth McGowan – Treasurer Thank you, Lauren Trahan, 2018 Chair New England Giorgio Dell’Acqua, pictured with Lauren Trahan, 2018 Chair Jim Hammer presenting on aerosol technology at Living Proof’s Style|Lab in Cambridge Perry Romanowski, 2018 National President Emily Nichols, 2019 Chair Kaylee Miller, 2019 Chair-Elect Joy Welsh, 2019 Secretary