1992 AFS Chair - Dr. Bernie Scheiner

Memories

When Faith contacted me about writing a piece for the Newsletter, I starting thinking of people and events buried deep in my mind. About 5 years ago my wife was diagnosed with Alzsheimers. She had been bed ridden for a number of years with various aliments, but Alzsheimers forced me to become a full time caregiver so I curtailed my outside activities in a short period of time. I had been active in SME (Society for Metallurgical and Mining Engineers} and AFS but stopped,  passed on the editorship for the Fluid/Particle Separation Journal, removed myself from the Advisory Board of Filtration News and folded my consulting business over the next two years. Therefore, I am out of touch with the present workings of AFS. Fifteen months ago, the family decided to put my wife Estelle in a nursing home.

My association with AFS started in the last 80’s. At that time, I supervised a large research group for the U.S. Bureau of Mines at the Tuscaloosa Research Center located in Tuscaloosa, AL. We were involved with environmental driven research that included dewatering of waste solids at a variety of operations from Florida to Alaska. Finding places to publish and present our research results with an eye on technology transfer was limited at that time. I was involved in programming for SME, but the interest in dewatering was limited to one session at their annual meeting. I was presenting a paper at a technical meeting at a conference on separation held in Orlando It was my practice to attend the technical sessions and ask questions to increase my knowledge.  At session after session, an elderly gentleman (a relative term) was there and asked great questions. Afterwards, I introduced my self to Professor Frank Tiller and we developed a friendship via the telephone. He invited me to present a paper at the Ocean City Conference, which was the kick-off technical meeting for AFS. I returned from the conference as an AFS convert.

At the conference, I met people who were excited about filtration and separations and want to develop a vehicle for getting the word out and helping those involved in the separations field to learn more. Wells Shoemaker was chairman of the meeting and though my memory has faded somewhat I can still see his smile and feel his enthuiasium as he conducted the conference. We ate well, laughed a lot and learned much technology. I rubbed shoulders with technical gaints such as Tiller and Bauman, with men of great knowledge like Ed Gregor, Harry Sandstedt, Shaio Chang and along with many others too numerous to name.

In the beginning, there was no national office, the Society consisted of Chapters spread across the country. The Dixie Chapter and Minneapolis Chapter were the biggest, but many of the smaller chapter were active and held yearly technical meetings. The Society on a national level started with a small office in Houston run by Guy Wiesmantel on  a part time basis. The Society grew in numbers and cooperate sponsors and holding one or two large meeting a year. AFS depends on volunteers and over the years many dedicated individuals come to mind, Les White, Ernie Mayer, George Chase, Al Holcomb, those mentioned previously along with score of others.
Some of the accomplishments made by the members I remember are: (1)obtaining 501 C 3 status for the Society; (2)development of an extensive short course program; (3)ability to conduct very good technical conference; (4) the ability to accommodate a wide diverse membership; (5) the development of the Young Scientist Awards;  (6) the development of the Fellow Member Award; and (7) having the journal of the Society abstracted by Chem Abstracts. Each of us would make a list with other or different accomplishments, but my memories of the beginning and the early stages of growth still put a smile on my face.