June 2023 Newswire
Message from the President
Dear SIO Members and Friends,
I usually begin these monthly updates with photos of my outdoor adventures over the past month, but this month has been a voyage of another kind. The SIO Executive Committee has been fully occupied since May 10, 2023, after learning that Graham Hauck, the principal at the Hauck & Associates nonprofit management company engaged by SIO since 2021, pleaded guilty to embezzlement from another nonprofit organization.
As I mentioned in my message to members on May 22, 2023, we immediately terminated Hauck’s contract with cause. We engaged forensic accountants and outside counsel to assist the SIO in identifying the extent of any misappropriation of SIO funds and pursuing restitution, and that work continues. Through our outside counsel, we are cooperating with federal law enforcement in reviewing Hauck’s dealings with SIO. While the timing and result of any government investigation is unclear, our top priority remains the recovery of funds misappropriated by Hauck.
Since Hauck’s termination, members of the Executive Committee have devoted extraordinary efforts to stabilizing and maintaining the SIO’s operations. I want to recognize and thank each one of them – Santosh Rao (President-Elect), Ting Bao (Immediate Past President), Ana Maria Lopez (Treasurer), Jodi MacLeod (Corporate Secretary), Channing Paller (VP Advancement), and Eugene Ahn (VP Communications) – for their tireless service and unwavering commitment to SIO. We have grown much stronger as a team personally and professionally.
A particular focus has been to ensure that preparations for our Banff 2023 Conference are not disrupted. We are happy to announce we have engaged with Funnel Communications, Inc. to undertake all conference planning duties moving forward. They have extensive experience in conference planning, even hosting a similar conference at the same venue in 2019.
Through it all, we have remained united as an EC and Board of Trustees, upholding core leadership values of Accountability, Transparency, Vision and Compassion as we forge a path forward which will protect SIO from future vulnerabilities.
I want to thank the Board of Trustees for their continued support of our efforts, the members and friends of SIO, and our generous benefactors, for your understanding and patience as we navigate this transition.
We encourage all of you to join us at our Banff 2023 Conference to celebrate our 20th Anniversary as a community. We will have much to celebrate this September in Banff as SIO moves into its third decade as a stronger, more united society, focusing, as always, on our mission to advance evidence-based, comprehensive integrative healthcare to improve the lives of people affected by cancer.
Linda E. Carlson, PhD, SIO President
Conference Planning
Conference planning activities have resumed full force with the switch of conference planning companies. The call for late-breaking poster abstracts is open here until June 9th. Don’t miss your last chance to participate in the conference as a presenter!
All presentation acceptance notifications from our earlier call for abstracts went out in early May, but some abstract submitters seem not to have received them. Please check your junk and spam folders as the notification would have come from Oxford Abstracts, our abstract management system, not SIO directly. If you submitted an abstract and have not heard back from us, please send an email to: info@integrativeonc.org and we will check its status and email you the notification once again.
Scholarship and New Investigator forum applications have been received, and we will be reviewing these and sending outcome notifications within the next month.
Earlybird registration rates are in effect until June 30th – make sure you register now here, and don’t forget to purchase your ticket for the conference gala atop the Sulphur Mountain gondola! It will most certainly be one to remember.
We look forward to seeing you for an exceptional 20th Anniversary conference in Banff!