The Committee on Qualifications and Membership has awarded our chapter a Certificate of Excellence for the year 2003-2004 . From a pool of 500 chapters, the Tidewater Virginia Chapter was one of eight chapters selected to receive such award. The Certificate of Excellence was awarded in recognition to demonstrating exceptional innovation, overall outstanding activities and quality of annual programming. Under the able leadership of our 2003-2004 Chapter President, Dr. Tarek Abdel-Fattah (now our Program Chair), we offered a number of different programs for several very different audiences during that year. The diversity of the chapter activities and the range of target audiences formed the basis for this award. The activities in 2003-2004 included the 5th Annual Poster Session, a site visit sneak preview tour to behind the scenes of the construction facilities to the newly renovated Virginia Living Museum at Newport News, a nanotechnology forum at Old Dominion University for researchers in the field, and the end of year banquet honored by the presence of Dr. Edward C. Oldfield from the Eastern Virginia Medical School as the banquet’s guest speaker. It is the dedication, commitment and offering time and effort of each member and officer in our chapter that make this chapter an effective one in the Hampton Roads area.