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NEHA President Phil Kirkwood in 1984, still very aware of how important this mission was to NEHA's membership, declared the annual conference theme to be hazardous waste and toxic substances. With the momentum of a building interest in the subject and a conference dedicated to the exploration of it, the Board of Directors at the annual conference in 1984 authorized the creation of a NEHA Council on Hazardous Waste and Toxic Substances. It was at this meeting that a charter for the council was adopted and a development plan put in place. The membership of the council to be appointed by NEHA's president consisted of 25 members with their terms being staggered so that a third of them would terminate each year. Harry Steigman, one of the leaders in NEHA's efforts to engage the hazardous waste issue, was appointed chairman. It should be noted that concurrent with the policy activities the association was pur suing in the 1980's NEHA also, through an earlier manpower project sponsored by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, had identified hazardous materials as a subject area within which environmental health professionals lacked needed knowledge. Because of this, one of the association's original self-paced learning modules was devoted to the topic of hazardous materials incident response. Because of the demand for this particular module, in 1984 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services funded NEHA for production of three new modules dealing with the subjects of hazard ous materials management, toxicology, and radiation. The first two of these modules were completed near the end of 1985 and the third in early 1987. For a number of years, the Sanitarian and the Journal ofEnvironmental Health con tained articles by professionals that called for the certification of specialists. When the hazardous waste council began its work, one of its early objectives was the creation of a specialty credential for hazardous waste personnel. In fact, one of the reasons for the council's existence was that no such credentialing opportunity existed for govern mental agency professionals in hazardous waste. Shortly after its inception, the council voted to recommend the creation of a seventh technical section within the association to deal with hazardous waste and toxic substances management. This recommendation was presented to the NEHA Board at its 1985 annual conference in Las Vegas, and by special Board mail ballot, the section was approved and instituted in the fall of 1985. Harry Steigman was named the chairman of that section by NEHA President Joseph Walsh. In addition to paving the way for the creation of a new section within the association, the council in pursuit of its mission (which centered on providing guidance on the development of a certification system for hazardous waste and toxic substances profes sionals and recommending an educational curriculum for such professionals) appointed two committees from its membership - a curriculum committee and a certification committee. The curriculum committee was to develop recommendations on curriculum and train ing for individuals working in the fields of hazardous waste and toxic substances control. This curriculum would be recommended to colleges and universities across the country. The certification committee was given the responsibility for overseeing development of a certification program that would enable those professionals who work for govern mental agencies, in particular, to demonstrate their competency in both basic and applied hazardous and/or toxic substances management skills.
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