At the ISCO 2012 AGM held last week at the Interspill Conference in London, Members elected Capt. William Boyle MNI as a new Member of the Executive Committee. Capt. Boyle has more than 25 years experience in oil spill response and is currently General Manager of Briggs Environmental Services, responsible for day to day National and International Operations, liaising with Clients and Governmental Agencies National and International.
Other members of the ISCO Executive Committee are David Usher (President), John McMurtrie (Secretary), Rear Admiral M. L. Stacey CB, Daniel F. Sheehan, Marc K. Shaye, Jean-Claude Sainlos, M. Kerem Kemerli, Paul Pisani, Simon Rickaby and Li Guobin.
The meeting also approved the appointment of two new Members of ISCO Council – John Wardrop as Member of Council for Australia and Dark Domovic as Member of Council for Croatia. John Wardrop is an international consultant to governments and industry with over 25 years experience in spill response. Darko Domovic, formerly Senior Programme Officer for REMPEC in Malta is now Technical Advisor to the Oil Spill Education Centre in Croatia.
The Guest Speaker at the meeting was Dr Merv Fingas, ISCO Member of Council for Canada and former Head of Emergencies Science at Environment Canada. In his illustrated talk on “Burning the Unburnable” he exploded the myth that a number of heavy oil types cannot be dealt with by in-situ burning.
ISCO President David Usher was unfortunately unable to be present but he opened the meeting via Skype AV link. He welcomed those present and spoke of the importance of ISCO in raising awareness of the role of professionals in the industry and the contribution they are making to protecting our environment.
ISCO Secretary John McMurtrie was acting Chairman and in the Secretary’s Report he welcomed recently joined new members including KBKM and Associates (USA), TerraTech (USA), Clean Harbors (USA), INTERTANKO, Eco Strategic Consultants (Australia), Enviro Voraxial Technology Inc. (USA), The University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (India) and Heather Parker (USA).
The Secretary also reported on progress made with the ISCO Professional Membership initiative under which individual professionals in the Spill Response Community can achieve professional recognition – Fellow, Member, Associate Member, Student Member – in accordance with their experience and qualifications. Over the last few months more work has been done to enhance the candidate assessment process to ensure that it is rigorous and verifiable, rules, guidelines, and a code of professional conduct have been developed. Professional Membership provides a career path for new entrants to the industry.
For individuals Professional Membership provides a visible mark of quality, competence and commitment. Interested candidates are now being listed and some corporate members have indicated intention to sponsor employees. The Meeting agreed to empower the Executive Committee to progress implementation of the initiative and the hope was expressed that this would soon be achieved.
The minutes of the AGM will be circulated to Members in the near future.
