Chair's Message

May 2026

May marks the close of the spring membership meetings with some exciting meetings.

Two topics of major interest to members are auditing and AI. Our May 14 meeting in Portland ME brings these together with Laura Halleck’s “AI in Action: Enhancing Risk Based Audit Planning”. As an auditor she has used AI tools to help plan internal audits for her clients. She will explain her methods and the success she achieves.

The AI theme continues in the context of medical devices. Our May 26 meeting (joint with Merrimack Valley) in Dracut MA explores this combination with Attrayee Chakraborty’s “Case Study: Engineering Safety for AI-Enabled Medical Applications”. She will demonstrate how FMEA can systematically identify, assess, and mitigate AI-specific risks. Her case study involves an AI-enabled medical device.

Our April meetings had some very interesting topics.

The Maine meeting had Rip Stauffer present “Your World is Not Red or Green – Best Practices in Data Display”. He explained data presentation and some of the ways it can go wrong, including some very entertaining examples.

The New Hampshire meeting had Laura Halleck present “The Future of ISO 9001: What’s Changing and How Organizations Should Prepare”. She took us through some of the proposed changes in ISO 9000 and ISO 9001, pointing out that neither issued and can still change. It was practical advice to help companies prepare for the new versions.

The section will continue the Granite State Quality Reading Group in May with the article “Remote Audit Readiness” in the April 2026 issue of Quality Progress. The announcement will include instructions to download the article and join the conversation.

After May, the section is on summer break. We are already working on the program for the fall and anticipate noteworthy topics that you will want to attend.

The section continues to announce on-line events from other sections and divisions. This gives our members opportunities to earn RUs without having to travel. If you know of an ASQ on-line event of interest to members let us know by contacting the Chair.

There are many opportunities to get involved. We need people to speak at Membership Meetings, present at Educational Events, and write Professional Development articles for the newsletter. To become involved please contact Dan O’Leary, the Section Chair, at doleary@memberleader.asq.org

Dan O’Leary CMDA, CQA, CQE, CRE, CSSBB

Chair, Granite State Section