Message from the CEO: ABA Member Updates | September 2026

September is shaping up to be another meaningful and active month for the American Burn Association (ABA). As I look across everything underway, from our committees and leadership nominations to education, advocacy, regional engagement, disaster preparedness, and preparations for ABA 2027, I am struck by how increasingly connected this work has become.

Over the past year, the Board has spent considerable time defining where ABA needs to go. Now, we are increasingly focused on turning that direction into action.

A Strategic Plan should not simply describe an organization’s aspirations. It should guide how we make decisions, engage our members, develop leaders, focus our resources, build partnerships, and measure progress.

And increasingly, that is what I see happening across ABA.

Bringing Our Members’ Expertise to the Board Table

One important change this year has been creating a more direct and regular connection between ABA’s committees and our Board of Trustees.

Beginning in June, committee chairs have been invited to present directly to the Board throughout the governance year. Thus far, that has included leadership from ABLS, Disaster, Membership, Verification, Economics & Access, and Burn Prevention, with Burn Therapist Certification and Organization & Delivery of Burn Care continuing that dialogue in September and additional committees scheduled throughout the year.

The Board has also worked to provide committee leaders with clearer guidance about how best to use that opportunity. We do not want these conversations to simply be reports of activities completed. We want our committee chairs to help the Board understand how they are impacting our Strategic Plan and what they are seeing within their areas of expertise: What is changing? What challenges or opportunities are emerging? Where should ABA focus its attention? Where could collaboration make a difference? And what questions or recommendations should the Board be considering?

We are already seeing the value. In August, for example, our Economics & Access Committee brought forward work involving coding, reimbursement, advocacy, education, and the economic sustainability of burn care. Our Burn Prevention Committee challenged us to think more broadly about ABA’s role in evidence-based prevention, public education, research, and the development of trusted prevention resources.

Our committees should not operate at the edges of ABA’s strategy. The expertise and experience of our volunteers should help inform and advance it.

Creating Transparent Pathways to ABA Leadership

That same commitment to engagement and transparency is shaping how we identify and develop ABA’s future leaders.

In August, we issued a Call for Interest for future Annual Meeting Program Chair leadership, followed by our broader Call for Board nominations, which closed September 4, 2026.

Now begins the equally important work of thoughtfully evaluating those who have stepped forward or have been nominated, and I believe our members should understand what that process entails.

Our updated Policy Manual  establishes clear eligibility and evaluation criteria. For Board and Program Chair candidates, these include professional experience in a burn-related field, demonstrated leadership, and a history of ABA membership.

Beyond basic eligibility, nominees are considered across several important attributes:

• membership and professional standing;

• nominated board officers who are from current ABA-verified centers;

• engagement in burn care;

• interdisciplinary representation;

• potential conflicts of interest and whether they can be appropriately managed or mitigated;

• alignment with ABA’s Strategic Plan;

• service to ABA; and

• demonstrated leadership and fiduciary capacity.

So, the question is not simply, “Is this individual eligible?”

We are also asking: What leadership strengths, experiences, perspectives, and capabilities can this individual bring to ABA at this point in our journey? How can they help advance our mission, strengthen our community, and carry our Strategic Plan forward?

Our policy also requires Nominating Committee members to disclose potential conflicts involving candidates and, when appropriate, recuse themselves from discussion, scoring, and voting.

The principles guiding the process are straightforward: transparency, fairness, multidisciplinary leadership, fiduciary accountability, strategic alignment, and member engagement.

Those are more than governance terms. They reflect the leadership culture we are working to build within ABA.

Expanding How—and Where—ABA Delivers Value

September also offers some very tangible examples of our strategy moving beyond the boardroom.

ABA will support the Southern Region Burn Conference , continuing to strengthen connections between regional and national burn communities. We will gather in San Antonio for the Burn Surgeon Forum, bringing burn surgeons together for focused education, collaboration, and discussion about issues affecting the specialty and its future.

ABA will also be represented at the CPT Editorial Panel meeting, helping ensure that burn care perspectives remain part of important national conversations involving coding, reimbursement, innovation, and access to care.

And, for the first time, ABA will bring Advanced Burn Life Support® (ABLS)  to the Emergency Nurses Association’s Emergency Nursing 2026 conference  in Phoenix. This represents an exciting opportunity to take ABA’s burn education directly to emergency nurses, professionals who are often among the first to assess, stabilize, and begin caring for patients following serious burn injuries.

We are simply not asking more people to come to ABA. We are finding meaningful ways to bring ABA’s knowledge, education, and expertise to them.

We are expanding access for our members as well.

Our summer ABA Masterclasses are now available on demand to ABA members , allowing those who could not participate live to benefit from the education and discussions. This is something new for ABA and another step toward the year-round learning environment we want to create.

Education should not be limited by a particular meeting, date, or location. We want ABA knowledge to be increasingly accessible when and where our members can use it.

Help Us Build ABA 2027

While we expand access to existing knowledge, we also need our members to help create what comes next.

The Call for Abstracts and Case Reports for ABA 2027 is now open.

I encourage you, and especially those of you working with students, residents, fellows, early-career professionals, and colleagues who may never have submitted before, to bring your work forward.

Share your science. Share an innovative practice or quality improvement effort. Share the challenging case that caused your team to think differently. Share what worked, what you learned, and what another burn professional might benefit from knowing.

Scientific research strengthens our evidence base. Case reports allow us to learn from the practical complexities of burn care. We need both.

Help us make ABA 2027 our strongest and most engaging scientific and practical program yet.

The future of burn care will not be created by ABA alone. It will be built from the science, experience, curiosity, innovation, and willingness to share that exists throughout this community.

Remembering Those Who Responded—and Preparing for Those Who Will

September also carries a deeper significance for the burn and trauma communities.

On September 10, ABA was represented at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., as we joined in remembering the September 11 attack on the Pentagon and recognizing those who responded to and cared for the injured.

It was an opportunity to honor the physicians, nurses, therapists, first responders, emergency personnel, and so many others whose service during an unimaginable tragedy demonstrated the importance of preparation, teamwork, expertise, and an unwavering commitment to patients.

For ABA, remembrance also carries a responsibility.

We honor those who responded before us not only by remembering their service, but by continuing to strengthen the systems that will support those called to respond next.

That connection feels especially relevant as ABA continues its work in national burn disaster readiness.

This month, we will continue discussions with BARDA/ASPR, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, BData, and other partners following our work with the RITCA pilot. These conversations are about much more than a technology platform. They are about what a sustainable national burn-readiness capability could look like, and the unique role ABA and the burn care community can play within it.

We are asking important questions: What information do burn centers and decision-makers need during a major burn or trauma event? How do we better connect burn centers, ABA regions, Regional Burn Disaster Coordinators, ASPR, and other federal and regional partners? How can trusted data improve situational awareness and decisions? And how do we build upon—not duplicate—the emergency response systems that already exist?

The objective is larger than RITCA itself.

It is about strengthening our collective ability to know, communicate, coordinate, and respond when the nation needs the burn care community most.

That work is deeply connected to ABA’s history ... and to our future.

Learning—and Sharing—Beyond the Burn Community

Later this month, I will also have the opportunity to represent ABA in a different setting when I speak at Association Forum in Chicago with fellow association executives.

I will share elements of ABA’s strategic planning journey and some of what we have learned about connecting strategy with governance, volunteer leadership, staff alignment, organizational priorities, and execution.

ABA has benefited enormously from learning from others. I am equally pleased that elements of our experience may now provide ideas that other organizations can adapt for their own strategic journeys.

A strong organization should always be willing to learn from others—but it should also have something worth sharing. ABA has things to share!

Our First 60. Our Next 60.

All of this feels especially meaningful as we begin looking toward ABA 2027 in Chicago and the celebration of the American Burn Association’s 60th anniversary.

Our Archives Committee, led by Dr. Lucy Wibbenmeyer, is doing important work to help us tell the story of those first six decades, not simply as a timeline, but through the people, discoveries, innovations, and milestones that transformed burn care.

Their work reminds us that ABA’s history is the story of extraordinary individuals who transformed tragedy into hope, science into healing, and leadership into lasting progress.

Across generations, ABA leaders and members advanced groundbreaking research, improved survival, elevated multidisciplinary burn care, inspired innovation and education, built burn centers and systems of care, mentored those who followed them, and served patients, families, and survivors.

We should proudly celebrate that legacy.

But an anniversary should do more than cause us to look back.

It should also cause us to ask:

What will the next 60 years of burn care look like, and what role will ABA play in helping shape them?

Who will we educate that we have not traditionally reached? What discoveries will transform treatment and recovery? How will our workforce evolve? How will data and technology change what is possible? How can prevention reduce the number of people who experience burn injuries? How will we prepare for disasters we cannot yet anticipate? And how do we develop the leaders who will carry this work forward?

When I look across ABA today, I believe we are already beginning to answer those questions.

Our committees are connecting more directly to strategy. We are creating more transparent pathways for future leaders. Education is reaching new audiences and becoming available in new ways. Members are invited to contribute to the science and practical experiences that will advance our field. Advocacy is supporting access and sustainability. Data is strengthening quality. Partnerships are creating new possibilities. And our disaster-readiness work is helping connect the burn community so that we can be prepared when we are needed most.

For 60 years, each generation has built upon the work of those who came before it and left a stronger profession for those who followed.

Now it is our turn.

At ABA 2027, we will proudly celebrate our first 60 years.

But I hope we do something more.

Together, let’s begin authoring the story of our next 60.

Thank you for everything you continue to do for ABA, for one another, and most importantly, for improving the lives of everyone affected by burn injury.

With Respect,

Ed Dellert, RN, MBA, CAE, FACEHP
Chief Executive Officer
American Burn Association