ACS News
ACS's new staff chief Mariella outlines role It doesn't take Ray Mariella very long to find words to describe his first eight months as executive director of ACS. Hectic. At times very trying. Demanding. But he doesn't stop there. Mariella by his own description is a people person. And in the top ACS staff position coordinating activities of 300 employees at ACS headquarters in Washington, D.C., and 1200 employees at Chemical Abstracts Service in Columbus, Ohio, he has plenty of chances to be a people person. So it's easy to believe him when he says his job is fun. "I like people," 59-year-old Mariella says straightforwardly. "People are fascinating. After all, my job is dealing with people. I'm not dealing with chemicals anymore, so that what effectiveness I have will be in getting along with people— getting to know them, their getting to know me—so that we can help one another." Mariella received his B.S. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1941 and a D.Sc. from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1945. He had a postdoctorate at the University of Wisconsin for a year and was a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University for five years. He then moved to Loyola University in Chicago, first as head of the chemistry department and later dean of the gradu-
Keep everything running smoothly
ate school, from which post he joined ACS as associate executive director in July 1977. Mariella's people orientation comes across in many facets of his executive director post. For instance, he views one of his main tasks essentially as a personnel job: "To keep the staff happy and functioning and to keep everything running smoothly." He takes pride in the progress he and his associates have made this year in personnel policies at ACS, and he reckons that this, along with a couple of delicate top management matters, has been one of his biggest challenges since he became executive director in January. And after meeting and talking with nearly every staff person in the headquarters building early in his administration, he concludes that ACS has a mostly satisfied and happy staff. Even his attitudes on yet another touchy subject—the Internal Revenue Service's questioning of ACS's tax-exempt status—are on the positive side. "I have the great strength and satisfaction of knowing ACS is in the right. It's not a trivial matter, and I believe that many of the people involved at the highest levels feel exactly the same way. With such inner feelings of right, we know that eventually we will prevail. It is regrettable that we have to have such uncertainty, turmoil, and agitation—and, I might add, expenditure of money—to achieve this state of right. I know that eventually it will work out in ACS's favor." And then he adds: "I mean that. I don't sit around and worry about it, for the simple reason that I know ACS isn't doing anything wrong." ACS personnel matters and the 1RS issue have consumed sizable amounts of Mariella's time this year. But he's also spent much of his efforts on another people matter—his functioning as a key contact figure with the federal government. "I have felt that one of my main responsibilities is to maintain close liaison with all the key scientists I can in the Washington area." By his own reckoning, he has come a long way in setting up this liaison, and indeed has established good working relations with many government scientists. As a consequence, he says, "I'm able to help monitor some things that are going to happen before they happen, so that I can be of some aid either to the government or to ACS. "I've always placed that in high priority and will continue to do so." Actually, he says he plans to increase his functioning as a key contact figure with the government. So far, he has devoted most of his time to the executive
branch and to regulatory agencies. But one of the things he hasn't done much of but plans to do more of in the future is to increase his contacts with members of Congress. "This is very important," he says. "By getting to know Congressional members and by their getting to know me, we'll brush aside a lot of the barriers that exist so that we can help one another." At the same time, Mariella exhibits some of the near-paranoia acquired during his eightmonth tenure: "Of course, I'll have to use a great deal of caution—I can never look as if I'm lobbying, and of course, ACS is not a lobbying group." In his contact role with other Washington institutions, Mariella's style is not a passive one of sitting in his office waiting for things to happen. Rather, he says, he wants to be in constant contact. "I should be an open receptacle for information to pour into. "There are whole networks of information constantly buzzing around this town, and I'm now a part of these to a fair extent, and I'm trying to make it more so. I sometimes know things days before the information is released officially, and that's very good, so that I can plan on what to do about it. That's the unique function that I can have in this office." Not only is Mariella developing closer contact with the government, but so is the society in general, through its public affairs department. Laws are being passed that vitally affect the jobs of chemists and chemical engineers, he says. "We feel that we must monitor this activity to see how it affects chemists, and do everything we can to make sure these laws do not act as detriments to the future, to the chemists themselves. "ACS has a charter that requires it to help the government, if it needs help, and many times ACS has offered assistance when the government has faced difficult problems; and it's common for the government to seek advice from us. Because of the great care and caution ACS has exercised in the past in dealing with national issues, I believe that we have achieved great credibility, so that many government figures do turn to us because we are respected and very careful in our deliberations. We try to keep the interests of the country foremost in our minds and at the same time keep in mind the interests of chemists and chemistry. By combining these, I believe we have achieved a happy balance in our dialogue with the government. After all, if we take care of the chemists, then the country benefits." Mariella's enthusiasm for ACS is eviSept. 4, 1978 C&EN
33
dent when he talks about the society. "There are so many things going on in ACS, frankly, that it's almost hard to enumerate all of them. And that's why ACS is such a fantastic group. It's dy namic, it's multifaceted, and it tries to address almost every issue in which it can help chemists and chemical engineers." One of these activities—in fact, the largest—that Mariella oversees is pub lishing. "It's one of the most important things that ACS does," he says. "We are looked up to by almost everybody in the country as well as the world. Our publi cations are paramount. Therefore, it is important that they be viable." Cognizant that rising production costs are becoming more and more a problem with several ACS journals and Chemical Abstracts, as well as with several other ACS programs, Mariella insists that the prime decisions about the society's pub lications should always be that they be maintained whenever possible—"and be maintained at the highest level of quality possible, which is what we have now," he says. "We should never weaken our pub lications, only strengthen them; they are the backbone of what chemistry is all about, the dissemination of knowledge." Some of the proposed solutions to the economic problems facing ACS journals, such as mandatory page charges and higher subscription prices, are, in Mariella's view, highly emotional issues. However, he's confident that "we'll end up with the right answer. "There's no crystal ball to tell us the right way to go. We try to cut costs, we try to use the most advanced technology that we can to save money." With one eye on rising costs and saving money, Mariella casts the other eye on several ways of increasing revenues. One of these, he says, is from the sale of expo sition space at national meeting chemical expositions. (This is one aim of the re cently established ACS department of chemical expositions.) He also expects increases in advertising in publications such as C&EN. Further revenues are ex pected to be generated, he says, from in creased sales of computerized material at ACS and from marketing books, journals, and microfilm. And ACS is always seeking to increase its revenue, he adds, by im proving the yield on investments. "Besides," he says, "another way to increase revenue is to decrease spending, and I guess that's part of my job—and I try to do it." Yet Mariella says that one of the most delicate and serious problems facing him and ACS is the very seriously deteriorat ing image of the chemist in the public's eye. He believes that the public hears so much about the chemical things that are going wrong—chemical plant accidents, health dangers to workers, tank car de railments, cancer risks of certain food additives—that the good things about chemistry are being "swamped, over looked, or just not brought out at all. "The time has come to be more ag gressive to improve this image, or at least to put it in the proper perspective. We 34
C&EN Sept. 4, 1978
% these meetings, he is confident that ACS 5 is in good shape, compared with other | organizations. "I'm sincerely convinced ζ that ACS is one of the most significant g and well-organized, well-functioning so cieties in the country, particularly of the scientific and engineering societies. I say that from observations of other societies, but also from observing the respect that others pay us. They know we are well run and a very significant group." Ernest Carpenter, C&EN Washington
Two new awards to be administered by ACS
Must improve image of the chemist
must not lose sight of all the good things that have been accomplished by chemists and must try to explain to the public what is the alternative to using no chemi cals." Mariella points out that ACS fre quently has undertaken projects that carry a positive image of chemists to the public, such asfilmsand television shows. And another attempt in this direction is in the proposed Chemical Science Center Museum, for which the board of directors has authorized a sum to study the con cept. The museum would be devoted to explaining to the public all the good things chemistry does. "We're in the midst of determining whether such a museum would be feasi ble. We feel clearly that it would be an important asset, and yet it also would be expensive, so we're considering the problem of how to finance it." He adds that he anticipates that a large part of the money for this project would come from industry, which also would benefit from the museum. However, Mariella admits that ACS has not made much of a concerted effort yet to improve the deteriorating image of chemists and chemistry. "There just has not been any large-scale effort by the na tional ACS to do something about that. Every ACS member should be a walking emissary of goodwill and proper dissem ination of knowledge to the public. But it's very difficult for some people to talk to the public about the complicated issues facing them as chemists. It takes experts who have the knack of doing that. It's simply one area we haven't done a lot in. We should be doing more—we may be doing more in the future." He doesn't dwell long, though, on neg ative aspects of the society. And nowhere does his enthusiasm and pride for the so ciety come out stronger than when he tells about the meetings he attends regularly with other society directors. Because of
A new ACS Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technol ogy, sponsored by Air Products & Chem icals Inc., has been accepted by the ACS Board of Directors. The award was es tablished "to encourage creativity in re search and technology or methods of analysis to provide a scientific basis for informed environmental control deci sion-making processes, or to provide practical technologies which will reduce health risk factors." It consists of $2000, a certificate of recognition, and an allow ance of up to $350 for travel expenses in cidental to the conferral of the award, and shall be granted annually without regard to age, nationality, or sex. The first pre sentation is set for 1980. The ACS Award for Nuclear Chemis try, sponsored by EG&G ORTEC, a sub sidiary of EG&G Inc., is intended to rec ognize and encourage research in nuclear and radiochemistry or their applications. The award, consisting of $3000, a certifi cate, and an allowance of up to $500 for traveling expenses to the meeting at which the award is presented, will be presented biennially effective with the 1980 presentation. There are no limits on age, nationality, or sex. Nominations for both awards will be solicited this fall in the campaign for all ACS awards to be presented in 1980. D
Safety symposium The ACS Chicago Section's safety and health committee will hold its 5th Annual Symposium this year devoted to OSHA Regulations as Applied to a Chemical Lab. It will be held Tuesday, Oct. 3, at the Palmer House, and will coincide with the National Safety Congress meeting in Chicago. Speakers from industry and government will present talks on: His torical and Legal Aspects of OSHA, Risk Assessment, OSHA Standards and Reg ulations, Analytical Procedures for Monitoring the Lab Environment, and Personal Protection. The symposium is aimed toward lab safety officers and lab personnel. A $10 registration fee is required. For further information contact Steve Cepa, Trace Elements Inc., 460 South Northwest Hwy., Park Ridge, 111. 60068, (312) 6962070. D
