March, 2007

Last year was again been a successful one for the Foundation. Our fundraising program has expanded beyond its original scope, and we are beginning to see the results. In October, our Board approved the recommendations of its Grants Committee and announced the award of additional grants to the following:

1. The Academy of Architecture for Health for funding web based seminars
2. The Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture for development of a comprehensive database
3. The team of Clemson University, Texas A&M, and Frank Zilm for compilation of space standards and grossing factors currently being used in contemporary buildings.

We also awarded grants to two new recipients:

1. A team led by Jo M. Solet, Ph.D. of Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School for validating new acoustical guidelines for health facilities
2. A team led by Dr. Mardelle McCuskey Shepley of Texas A&M University for studying the impact of NICU environments on the range of family interactions and subsequent development of design guidelines.

We are especially pleased to continue to support the efforts of the 2006 recipients as well as two new groups this year. With continuing success in our fundraising, we hope to be able to award additional grants next year.
At the Academy’s annual fall meeting in Miami, we hosted a reception for a select group of firms who are critical to all our work in healthcare environments. Engineering consultants, equipment planners, manufacturers and others joined us to learn more about the Foundation and to listen to brief presentations about the 2006 grant projects from the recipients.

Based on last year’s expansion of our Board to nine Trustees and, as part of our planning for the future, we brought on three new Trustees this year:  Dina Battisto, Bob Levine and Dan Noble. And we celebrated the exceptional service of the departing Trustees, Merlin Lickhalter, Bruce Arneill and Joe Sprague.  All three, part of the original group of six Founding Trustees, have given untold hours of effort and unflagging support – without which we would neither exist nor have reached our current success. Again, our tremendous thanks to them. 

If you have any questions about any of our projects or our overall efforts, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of the other Trustees.
We all wish everyone a happy, healthy and peaceful 2007.

Georgeann Burns