It has been a pleasure to serve as your chair for the past two years. I have enjoyed getting to know many of you around the state, and I hope to continue to work with you on workers' compensation issues in the future. If we have not met, I hope our paths will cross soon. Thank you for attending and speaking at CLEs, contacting speakers, reading or writing for the newsletter, and for taking an interest in the committee. Your input has impacted the quality of our services to the workers' compensation community.

So I will end my term the way I started, by saying, change is inevitable, even with our committee. It is my pleasure to announce Michael Moroni as our new committee chair effective September 28, 2006.

Mike served as vice chair for two years, and organized the Workers' Compensation Institute with the assistance of many of you. The Institute was well received. Mike served as an associate administrative law judge with the Division until December 2005. He is now a managing partner with the satellite office of Burns & Taylor in Cape Girardeau.

Please join me in congratulating Mike as he begins his term as chair. Drop him a line or give him a call. Most of all continue to attend Missouri Bar workers' comp CLEs, read and write for the newsletter, and assist with contacting speakers for events. Your commitment to this effort has enabled us to have record attendance at sponsored programs statewide.

Melissa Pantazi, "The WC" newsletter editor, is also stepping down after coordinating seven outstanding issues of "The WC" since it's inception in February 2005. Melissa has done a wonderful job coordinating with The Missouri Bar. (The staff have been great to work with.) Melissa has also been able to keep a constant stream of writers contributing everything from humor to commission decisions. I thank her for all her contributions. A special thanks goes to Bob Stoeckl, Director of Projects for The Missouri Bar, for his unwavering support of our committee.

Congratulations to Rebecca Wright for volunteering as editor of “The WC” starting in September. Rebecca works for the Attorney General's office handling workers' compensation cases. She has been a contributing writer to “The WC” since the beginning. We have enjoyed the information she has provided on free legal and medical research Internet sources. For more information, see back issues of “The WC.”

It is my pleasure to introduce your new committee leaders for the coming bar year. Congratulations and thanks to each of you:

1. Vice-Chairs - CLE Institute: Chief Judge Tim Wilson - Springfield and Kansas
City Institutes; and Eric Kukowski - Columbia and St. Louis Institutes

CLE subcommittee volunteers: Mary Thompson, Brad Young, Todd Miller, Ron Edelman, and Shaun Falvey (more volunteers are needed)

2. Editor – “The WC”: Rebecca Wright

Newsletter staff: Eric Lanham, Brandy Johnson, Mike Mengen, Suzette Carlisle (everyone is invited to contribute)

3. Communications Liaison (sending notices of meetings, CLE’s, etc.): Glenn Easley

I hope to see you at the Annual Missouri Bar Workers’ Compensation Committee Breakfast Meeting in St. Louis on Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 7:30 am – 9:00 am at the Renaissance Grand Hotel as we bring in the new bar year.


Respectfully submitted,
 

Suzette Carlisle

MoBar Workers’ Compensation Chair for 2004-06