Dear Colleagues, Wayne Bequette was recently named Meeting Program Chair for the 2014 AIChE Meeting in Atlanta. Because of his new assignment, Wayne has asked me and I agreed to transition early as the new CAST Programming Chair, effective last month. On behalf of all of us, I wanted to express many thanks to Wayne for his programming efforts and for agreeing to continue to provide advice during the transition. One of the initiatives that I will be handling as CAST Programming Chair is the new area chair selection procedure, which was unanimously supported by the CAST Executive Community at the Fall 2012 meeting. Future program coordinators will be selected by a voting process that follows an open request for nominations that begins at least eight weeks before the AIChE Fall Annual Meeting. When you send me your nominations, please first ensure that your nominees are willing to serve if elected. Best wishes, Nick Sahinidis