Secretary 

Michelle Callahan, CST

Hello, my name is Michelle Callahan and I am running for the position of secretary. Serving as your secretary for the past year has been a great privilege. Being part of the ISA has given me the opportunity for much professional growth. Seeing ISA from the inside has opened my eyes to the complexities of running this great organization. Having served as a Board of Director for two years and the education chairperson I have had the opportunity to work in many areas of the board; fundraising, education and legislation. I have also served as a delegate at national conference. These are exciting times to be involved in AST. Our national membership has ballooned over the past few years and I would like to see Indiana achieve that same growth. If you, the members, give me the opportunity to serve again, I would like to help grow our membership and continue to provide excellent educational opportunities. Please vote for me, Michelle Callahan, for your ISA secretary.

 Board of Directors 

Michael Parks, CST

Hello my name is Michael Parks, but you can call me “Mikey”, and I am running for State Board of Director.  I am currently serving you as a Board of Director and would like your vote of confidence for re-election.  I currently work with the Education Committee planning conferences, and contact sites to promote the profession further by getting the word out to all of the other CST in our great state.  It has been a privilege this year as a Board of Director to represent you all at the National Conference as a delegate.  There was a lot of good information that was presented there and a lot of good friendships were made by myself and all of the other members of the state board.   Please feel free to email me any questions that you may have for me or stop me at a conference and ask anything you might be thinking.  I would love to get to know more of you in the state to the point that I would be able to get to know all 1500 members.  I am asking for your support this fall; please vote for me to help further the profession for all future CST.  Thank you.

Stella Guzman, CST

Hello, my name is Stella Guzman. I am a Certified Surgical Technologist at Columbus Regional Hospital in Columbus, Indiana.

I am proud to be a CST. Being able to promote our profession through education and letting the public know about why our profession is important. I have always enjoyed coming to the Indiana State Assembly conferences learning about different techniques and applying them at my hospital. I would like to be a part of the Board of Directors to give back to the State Assembly by promoting the profession, raising funds, and help with legislative efforts.

Thank you,

Stella Guzman, CST

Sam Waites, CST

It is a pleasure to offer my candidacy as an incumbent for the 2010 Indiana State Assembly Board of Directors election. As a member of AST and ISA for a short period of time, it has been exciting to see its evolution, but even more exciting to have taken active part in it.  I had the opportunity to learn a lot during my first year serving on the ASTSA board.

But, I feel like there are so much more for me to learn on how this organization runs. Some areas had impressed me quite a lot. Like the efforts that some committee members, staff members and national board of directors put in place for the 41^st annual conference in Dallas, Texas.

There are several areas where I will continue to contribute as a volunteer of the organization. Such as assisting with the conventions so that they can be as successful as they can be, or providing information and content for the website, The Surgical Technologist magazine and outreach and mentoring to our student surgical technologists and so on.

In addition, I now see also the tricky balance between retaining current membership and motivating new ones due to the continuing education hours required. We need to provide the existing members with valuable resources, information, materials, and discussion forums. But, on the other side, we would like also to reach out to those who are yet to understand the joy of the organization not only on our state level, but on the national one as well, sharing with them the appreciation of their opinions and concerns, and bringing people together to encourage a strong community between student surgical technologist and certified surgical technologists.

I want to strengthen the capability of each group, and redistribute better the information and resources. It looks like sharing promotes growth of our profession. It results from the various collaborations initiatives and dedication, like conventions, magazines, books, and many other projects. The sharing of the joy of our profession is our job to share with our new and upcoming surgical technologists by being a mentor, preceptor, and through education and experience we can provide, and I see our duty is to continue with this legacy that has been so generously laid before us.

If elected into the position of board of director, I would like to focus on teaching and fundraising to ensure the future of our soon to be certified technologist and work on ways to encourage new members so we continue our mission. I would appreciate your support and opportunity to serve as one of your board of directors.