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Authored by:
Tonya Edvalson
Membership Chair, SRAI
University of Utah
Email: tonya.edvalson@hsc.utah.edu

The Silent Auction has a great leader and SRAI has an invaluable member in Norma Berry.

This month we are honored to highlight Norma Berry. Norma is an Administrator at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center for Physics and Astronomy. She has been a valuable member of SRAI since 1998 or 1999 - a long time! With 40 years of research experience, she has shared this expertise with our members through various roles including being a speaker, participating on the planning committees for many of our meetings, and serving as a newcomer ambassador. She was instrumental in the creation of the Northeast Section Chesapeake Chapter including actually designing the logo. However, most of us know her best for her passion for the Section Silent Auction Committee. She is a pro! It was so much fun to see her in action at the last two Section meetings when I was on the Executive Committee. We had record-setting auctions and were able to fund five travel scholarships per meeting (2018 and 2019) for the Northeast and Western Sections. That is an incredible feat! True to Norma’s humble countenance, she is very proud of the committee’s work, shares this excitement with the entire team that made these auctions a success, and was quick to point out that she learned what she knows from Gayle Walters. She was very proud of the group effort and did not want the spotlight. Throughout her membership in SRAI, she has most appreciated the opportunities to network, learn from her peers, and assist with the silent auction.

Norma has many interests in her spare time. It’s an impressive list of home decorating, sewing, crafting, and machine embroidery. None of those activities beat the time she gets to spend with her grandchildren! At some point she will be able to enjoy some of the summer sun she misses while she plays a little in the water and relaxes with a good book.

SRAI appreciates and values our members who are out there making the organization so successful. There are so many things that need to be done. We are a volunteer organization that thrives because of members like Norma and so many others that find a niche and makes it all happen. SRAI appreciates you, Norma, for all that you do!