My Years as an ALA Volunteer
Torsten A. Staab · JALA Journal of the Association for Laboratory Automation · 2005
c I had my first encounter with ALA through Dr. Tony Beugeldijk, who is one of the founders of ALA, back in 1997. At that time, I was working for Tony as a graduate student on the Automation & Robotics team at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. One day, Tony stopped by my office and asked me if I would be interested in teaching a Java introductory short course at LabAutomation’98 in San Diego. At first, I hesitated, primarily because English was not my native language and I wasn’t sure if I could successfully teach a whole day in English. Nevertheless, I overcame my fears and agreed to do it. In the end, everything went fine, despite my strong German accent. I have been actively involved in the LabAutomation short course program and ALA ever since. Although I had worked in the area of laboratory automation since 1994 through my affiliations with the University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden, Germany, and the National Institute of Standards and Technologies, LabAutomation’98 was the first conference I had ever attended on the subject. It was a great experience forme. Learning aboutwhat others were doing and getting unbiased feedback onmy own work, plus the multitude of professional networking opportunities are still themost valuable attributes that LabAutomation and ALA have to offer me today. From a professional point of view, the contacts that I have been able to make through volunteering for committees, authoring papers for JALA, and attending and presenting at ALA-sponsored events have been invaluable to me. I am also lucky to say